Letter

Minimising harm from hepatitis C virus needs better strategies

BMJ 2000; 321 doi: 10.1136/bmj.321.7265.899 (Published 7 October 2000)
Cite this as: BMJ 2000;321:899.1

Access to the full text of this article requires a subscription or payment. Please log in or subscribe below.

  1. Nick Crofts (crofts@burnet.edu.au), head,
  2. Sonia Caruana, research assistant,
  3. Scott Bowden, molecular microbiologist,
  4. Michael Kerger, outreach worker
  1. Epidemiology and Social Research Unit, Macfarlane Burnet Centre for Medical Research, PO Box 254, Fairfield, Victoria 3078, Australia
  2. Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, Locked Bag 815, Carlton South, Victoria 3053, Australia
  3. Centre for Harm Reduction/Macfarlane Burnet Centre for Medical Research, Footscray, Victoria 3011, Australia

    EDITOR—Hepatitis C virus and HIV are both blood borne, and infection may occur in injecting drug users, transmitted by sharing contaminated needles and syringes. Despite extensive harm reduction programmes in Australia, hepatitis C virus continues to spread among injecting drug users, but HIV does not, partly because the prevalence of hepatitis C virus has been high among injecting drug users in Australia since at least 1971, whereas that of HIV, present only from around 1982, has remained low.1

    Hepatitis C virus has a higher average …

    Access to the full text of this article requires a subscription or payment

    Subscribe

    Article access

    Article access for 1 day

    Purchase this article for £20 $30 €32*

    The PDF version can be downloaded as your personal record

    * Prices do not include VAT

    Rapid responses

    THIS WEEK'S POLL

    BMJ most popular