HIV/AIDS and Injecting Drug Users
Over 30% of new HIV/AIDS cases outside of Africa are people who inject drugs. Only 8% of injecting drug users have access to HIV Prevention programs. These programs are usually about clean needles and drug substitution. I find this lack of HIV protection programs for injecting drug users very disappointing.
I wonder if the problem is that many people don’t like to:
a) admit that people use illicit drugs,
b) that harm minimisation methods are thought to encourage or condone the use of drugs.
In addition, access to antiretroviral therapy is “unacceptably low” among IDUs because of a “lack of information, exclusion and widespread stigma and discrimination,” according to UNAIDS.