HIV DECLINING AMONG CHICAGO'S INJECTING DRUG USERS

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - HIV (news - web sites) infection rates appear
to have fallen among injecting drug users in Chicago, researchers report.

The infection rate was about 1.1 per 100 people per year in 1996, according
to a report in the December 15th issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndromes. In a 1994 study, the infection rate had been more
than double that amount, at 2.4 per 100 people per year.

In the study, Dr. Lawrence J. Ouellet of the University of Illinois at
Chicago and colleagues interviewed nearly 800 injecting drug users between
the ages of 18 and 50 who were not in drug treatment.

At the beginning of the study, 18% of the injecting drug users were HIV
positive. ``Our findings suggest that infection levels among injecting drug
users in Chicago generally remain below those found on the East Coast but
above those in western and southern states,'' Ouellet and his colleagues note.

The researchers were able to re-test about 74% of the study participants.
On average, they were tested at 16.5 months after the beginning of the
study. Seven more people tested HIV positive at that time.

The authors conclude that the number of seroconversions--going from HIV
negative to HIV positive--that occurred during the 1994-1996 study was 1.1
per 100 people per year, lower than in the past.

``Taken together, these findings offer guarded optimism that HIV prevalence
and incidence among injecting drug users may be declining in Chicago,''
Ouellet's team writes.

The investigators found that people who had injected drugs for 3 years or
less were more likely than longer-term injecting drug users to become
infected with HIV, a finding that has been reported by others.

People who are new to injecting drug use may be more likely to ``rely on
others for injection equipment and to perform injections, thus increasing
their risk of using contaminated paraphernalia,'' Ouellet and his
colleagues conclude.