HEPATITIS 'RAMPANT' IN JAILS

Administrators have failed to take responsibility for halting rampant
hepatitis C in Australia's jails, a drug expert says.

Kate Dolan, of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre in Sydney,
said that in New South Wales about one-third of male and two-thirds of
female inmates were infected with the disease.

Dr Dolan said in the Medical Journal of Australia that hepatitis C was
being spread in jails through injecting drugs and tattooing.

In WA, the Ministry of Justice said the rate of hepatitis C among WA
prisoners was about 10 per cent to 20 per cent.

Former justice minister Peter Foss told State Parliament in 1999 that
between 20 per cent and 40 per cent of new arrivals to WA jails tested
positive for hepatitis C.

But AIDS council executive director Trish Langdon said official figures
were difficult to estimate because the test was not compulsory in WA prisons.

Only condoms were freely available to prisoners. They did not have access
to clean needles or methadone or naltrexone programs.

Dr Dolan said about 25 per cent of prisoners injected drugs, mostly with
shared equipment.

Strategies such as providing more treatment for addiction were needed to
cut the number of injecting drug users going into prison.

"There is abundant evidence that community based methadone treatment
reduces injecting, crime and the subsequent incarceration of drug users,
yet only a third of the demand for methadone treatment is met in the
community," she said.

Dr Dolan said that with less than one per cent of general practitioners
prescribing methadone in NSW, the first step in improving treatment would
be to boost these numbers.

Other strategies could include having different punishments for prisoners
who used non-injectable drugs, compared with syringe-based drugs, and
having needle exchanges in prison.

Training selected inmates in tattooing and providing them with sterile
equipment might help.

But most of these strategies required the cooperation of prison chiefs who
had not accepted that their jails played a big role in the hepatitis C
epidemic, Dr Dolan said.

Prison commissioners would not even discuss recommendations made in the
National Council on AIDS and Related Diseases review of government strategy.

Ministry of Justice health service director Chris Henderson said a blood
screening program in WA prisons would provide a more accurate picture this
year.

All prisoners were educated about safe injecting and sexual practices.