What do you know about HIV and Opioid Epidemic?

As the opioid epidemic has worsened, there has been growing concern about how injection drug use might fuel transmission of infectious disease. Those misusing opioids commonly move from oral use to insufflation to injection use.3 In fact, an estimated 10-20% of people who abuse prescription opioids move on to inject either opioids or heroin.4 Injection drug use increases the risk of blood-borne infections including HIV, hepatitis, and bacterial endocarditis, which spread efficiently through needle sharing.

In 2015, opioid use resulted in an HIV outbreak in Scott County, Indiana, with 181 individuals diagnosed with HIV by year-end, most of whom were co-infected with hepatitis C (HCV).5,6  In response to this outbreak and the threat posed by the opioid epidemic more broadly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified 220 jurisdictions particularly vulnerable to a similar type of outbreak in an effort to detect and prevent additional events.7 Indeed, recent reports suggest new outbreaks may in fact be occurring. In the context of HIV, this has raised particular concerns given that, prior to the opioid epidemic, HIV infections due to injecting drug use had fallen dramatically.