Editorial: HIV and Illicit Drugs of Abuse.

Venkata S R Atluri

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2016.00221

Abstract

Editorial: HIV and Illicit Drugs of Abuse.

Highlights

Drugs of abuse plays a major role in increasing the risk of HIV transmission, disease progression, and less adherence to the antiretroviral therapy, which significantly contribute for morbidity and mortality of the HIV infected patients (Anthony et al, 1991; Arnsten et al, 2002)
Heroin is the most commonly used illicit drug in HIV patients followed by stimulants such as cocaine and METH (AIDSinfo, 2012)
Garin et al reported that recreational drug use is higher in HIV infected persons than the general population and cannabis is the highly used recreational drug in the Europe followed by cocaine, amphetamines and ecstasy

Summary

Introduction

Drugs of abuse plays a major role in increasing the risk of HIV transmission, disease progression, and less adherence to the antiretroviral therapy, which significantly contribute for morbidity and mortality of the HIV infected patients (Anthony et al, 1991; Arnsten et al, 2002). While injection drug use is the second most common route for the HIV transmission, alcohol consumption, smoking, inhaling, and ingesting drugs such as heroin, morphine, crack cocaine, methamphetamine (METH) will increase the risk for obtaining HIV infection (Friedland and Vlahov, 2011).

Results

Conclusion