Prevention of Hepatitis C Virus in Injecting Drug Users: A Narrow Window of Opportunity

Abstract

prevalence among IDUs and higher risk of HCV infection following injection with a contaminated syringe (2.5%‐ 5.0% for HCV [5‐8] vs .5%‐2.0% for HIV [8‐11]). High HCV incidence and rapidly increasing HCV prevalence are observed among young IDUs in different settings [12]. Factors associated with HCV acquisition include recent initiation to injecting [13, 14], unstable housing [15], female gender [16], ethnicity [17, 18], survival sex work [13, 19], frequent injecting cocaine use [13, 16, 20, 21], imprisonment [21], having a partner who injects [20], injecting networks [22], requiring help injecting [20], and borrowing injecting equipment [13]. The high risk of HCV among younger and recent IDUs indicates a narrow window of opportunity for prevention, with estimates of the