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- HIV and AIDS -

Overview

HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, causes AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome), a life-threatening disease for which no cure is available. In the United States, HIV is most often transmitted by sexual contact, by exposure to the blood of an infected person, and by needle sharing among users who inject drugs.

AIDS results in a pathological dysfunction of the infected person's immune system. A person suffering from AIDS loses the functioning of the immune system and is therefore open to bacterial and viral infections that persons with normally functioning immune systems can fight off. Persons suffering from AIDS are unable to fight off infections and may eventually die of repeated infections.

HIV and Drug Use

Drug use, a major risk factor for HIV infection, can lead to infection in many ways, some direct and others indirect. Intravenous drug use is one of the easiest ways to get infected with HIV. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), www.cdc.gov estimates that about half of recent HIV cases involved intravenous drug use as the route of infection (Holmsberg, 1996). Males who inject drugs are apparently responsible for an increase in HIV infections among women who have sexual contact with them (Choopanya et al., 1991). Females who inject drugs frequently develop HIV infections, and they transmit HIV to their unborn children.

Needles are extremely effective at spreading HIV infection. When dirty needles are used to inject drugs, HIV has easy access to the human body, and the virus can circumvent the body's normal systems of protection against outside infections. In one large city, health surveys found that HIV infection rates among injected drug users shot up from 1% to 43% in the space of one year (Choopanya et al., 1991). Those frightening statistics show how infection rates can skyrocket from a few infected persons to large portions of the population.

Evidence suggests that programs that prevent and treat drug addiction are also successful in reducing HIV transmission. Successful treatment or prevention of drug addiction is a vital step in fighting HIV infection among people at risk.

References

Holmsberg, S.D. (1996). The estimated prevalence and incidence of HIV in 96 metropolitan areas. American Journal of Public Health. 86:642-654.

Des Jarlais, D.C.& Friedman, S.R. (1988). HIV infection among persons who inject illegal drugs. AIDS. 1:267-273.

Choopanya K., Vanichseni, S., Des Jarlais, D.C.; Plangsringarm, K.; Sonchai, W.; Carballo, M.; Friedmann, P.; Friedman, S.R. (1991, December). Risk factors and HIV seropositivity among injecting drug users in Bangkok. AIDS. 5(12):1509-13.

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