The Effectiveness of Low Dead Space Syringes for Reducing the Risk of Hepatitis C Virus Acquisition Among People Who Inject Drugs: Findings From a National Survey in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
cross_sectional · Level IV
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35184173.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1093/cid/ciac140 and PMC identifier 9522423.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Syringes with attached needles (termed fixed low dead space syringes [LDSS]) retain less blood following injection than syringes with detachable needles, but evidence on them reducing blood-borne virus transmission among people who inject drugs (PWID) is lacking. Utilizing the UK Unlinked Anonymous Monitoring cross-sectional bio-behavioral surveys among PWID for 2016/18/19 (n = 1429), we showed that always using fixed LDSS was associated with 76% lower likelihood (adjusted odds ratio = 0.24, 95% confidence interval [CI]: .08-.67) of recent hepatitis C virus infection (RNA-positive and antibody-negative) among antibody-negative PWID compared to using any syringes with detachable needles.
Medical subject headings
- Drug Users
- HIV Infections
- Hepatitis C
- Substance Abuse, Intravenous