BMJ  2007;335:583 (22 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.39343.387315.DB

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Prisoners are developing resistance to HIV drugs because their care is fractured

Warwick

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The chaotic nature of prison is detrimental to the health care of inmates, delegates at the Health Protection Agency's conference in Warwick this week were told. The frequent transfer of prisoners around the system has led to a lack of continuity in care.

"HIV patients are transferred from one prison to another, but their retroviral drugs don't go with them," delegate Tim Moss, a consultant at Doncaster Royal Infirmary, told the conference. Discontinuous treatment meant that these patients were developing resistance to their antiretrovirals. "It is nothing short of negligence," he said.

It was not just prisoners with HIV who experience this breakdown in care but also those with hepatitis C and tuberculosis. Many patients were lost to follow-up or did not complete their treatment, because of transfer to another prison or early release. Healthcare workers were often not told about these changes so were unable to make the proper . . . [Full text of this article]

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