Hb. Decarvalho et al., HIV AND INFECTIONS OF SIMILAR TRANSMISSION PATTERNS IN A DRUG INJECTORS COMMUNITY OF SANTOS, BRAZIL, Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes and human retrovirology, 12(1), 1996, pp. 84-92
To study the prevalence of HIV and infections with related transmissio
n patterns, we interviewed and obtained blood samples from 110 injecti
ng drug users (IDUs), sampled by snowballing, from the city of Santos
in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, where the estimated number of IDUs
(10,000) comprises similar to 2% of the entire population. Seroprevale
nce of HIV, hepatitis B and C. syphilis, and HTLV (1 and 2) was assess
ed and compared with that in 197 blood donors from the same city, matc
hed for age and gender. Risk behavior related to HIV was assessed by a
standard questionnaire applied to the IDU sample. Univariate and mult
ivariate analyses of the risk factors were performed. Seroprevalences
found were 62% for HIV, 75% for HCV. 75% for HBV, 34% for syphilis, an
d 25% for HTLV (1 and 2) among IDUs, which compare with 0.0%, 2%, 23%,
12%, and 1% for blood donors, respectively. The risk for parenterally
transmitted infections in this IDU community was higher than that for
sexually transmitted infections (odds ratio for syphilis, 3.57; hepat
itis B. 10.0: and hepatitis C, 100). The results of the multivariate r
isk analysis showed that daily rate of ID use >5 times/day (OR = 6.73)
, not changing behavior to avoid AIDS (OR = 3.28), ID use >15 days/mon
th (OR = 2.72), and ID use in the last 2 months (OR = 2.23) were the r
isk behaviors significantly associated with HIV infection.