Countries must intensify efforts to track HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) incidence among people who inject drugs, and to prioritise this group in prevention and elimination work.
UNAIDS and WHO have recommended targets for ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic and eliminating HCV as a public health threat by 2030. To validate these targets, countries must measure HIV and HCV incidence and document a decline over time. People who inject drugs are one of the key risk groups for HIV and HCV infection, so it is important for countries to track HIV and HCV incidence in this high-risk group.
Bristol Medical School researchers sought to address this by summarising global HIV and primary HCV incidence data among people who inject drugs together with age- and sex- or gender-specific incidence data. They conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis by searching for relevant studies published between 2000 and 2022.
Their findings suggest there is a pressing need for most countries to scale-up measurement and monitoring of HIV and HCV incidence among people who inject drugs, and to prioritise this population in prevention and elimination efforts. In addition, given that young people who inject drugs and women who inject drugs have higher risk of getting infected with both HIV and HCV, age-appropriate and gender-appropriate prevention measures are urgently needed to reach and engage with these vulnerable risk subgroups.
'Incidence of HIV and hepatitis C virus among people who inject drugs, and associations with age and sex or gender: a global systematic review and meta-analysis' by Adelina Artenie, Peter Vickerman et al. in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology [open access]