HIV

Injecting Drug Users (IDUs) are at a high risk of infection with blood-borne viruses including HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C, and they are increasingly being targeted by policies that aim at preventing the spread of HIV. Approximately 10% of HIV infections worldwide are transmitted via injecting drug use. Many countries in Asia, including Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal and India, have reported serious HIV epidemics among IDUs. Injecting drug use is an efficient and prevalent mode of HIV transmission, and it is the principal mode of transmission in some parts of the world. In the United States, approximately 10,000 IDUs are believed to acquire HIV each year, and they account for 8% of new HIV infections and 16% of people currently living with HIV (CDC Report, 2012). Increasing the number of HIV-infected IDUs who undergo diagnosis, increasing their access to care and prevention services, and increasing their adherence to a therapeutic regimen are the current challenges in tackling the HIV epidemic in this population. To overcome these obstacles, clinicians must have both the technical knowledge and skill required for assisting patients. The timeliness of HIV diagnosis and the initiation of antiretroviral treatment are major determinants of survival for HIV-infected people. IDUs are less likely than non-users in other transmission categories to seek early HIV counselling, testing and treatment. To improve the survival of IDUs, HIV prevention efforts must ensure early access to HIV testing and care, as well as encourage adherence to antiretroviral treatment to slow disease progression. Wafa Fageeh, Prevalence and Awareness of Sexually Transmitted Infections among Inmates of a Drug Rehabilitation Center in Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Study. Open access to the scientific literature means the removal of barriers (including price barriers) from accessing scholarly work. There are two parallel “roads” towards open access: Open Access articles and self-archiving. Open Access articles are immediately, freely available on their Web site, a model mostly funded by charges paid by the author (usually through a research grant). The alternative for a researcher is “self-archiving” (i.e., to publish in a traditional journal, where only subscribers have immediate access, but to make the article available on their personal and/or institutional Web sites (including so-called repositories or archives)), which is a practice allowed by many scholarly journals. Open Access raises practical and policy questions for scholars, publishers, funders, and policymakers alike, including what the return on investment is when paying an article processing fee to publish in an Open Access articles, or whether investments into institutional repositories should be made and whether self-archiving should be made mandatory, as contemplated by some funders.

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Last date updated on April, 2024