PRISONS HELPING SPREAD AIDS: STUDY

Up To 15 Per Cent Of Inmate Drug Users Inject Heroin, Cocaine

(CNS) Up to 15 per cent of incarcerated drug users report injecting
heroin and cocaine while behind bars, according to one of two new
studies that say Canadian prisons are contributing to the spread of
the virus that causes AIDS.

The findings are so worrisome the researchers at the B.C. Centre for
Excellence in HIV/AIDS who conducted the studies have renewed calls
for in-prison needle exchanges to reduce the risk of dirty syringes
spreading HIV and Hepatitis C infections, which are common among inmates.

The sharing of used needles in prisons is "a recipe for disaster,"
says Dr. Evan Wood, a principal investigator on both studies.

The first, in this week's advance online edition of the Journal of
Public Health, published by Oxford University, followed 1,247
intravenous drug users. Half of them had spent time in jails at some
point during the six-year study. Almost 15 per cent of those
incarcerated reported injecting heroin or cocaine in prison, most of
them with used syringes.

The second study, published in the Drug and Alcohol Review this week,
followed another group -- 902 injection drug users at Insite,
Vancouver's controversial supervised injection facility.
Approximately one-third reported spending time behind bars at each
six-month followup in the two-year-long study and five per cent
reported injecting drugs while incarcerated.

"People who had been incarcerated were more likely to report syringe
sharing and more likely to be infected with HIV and hepatitis C as
compared to non-incarcerated injection drug users," the researchers say.

Wood said in an interview the studies likely underestimate the rate
of syringe sharing, which many people are reluctant to admit.

He says a "co-ordinated public health response" is needed to address
the risk of disease transmission from prisons not only to protect
inmates, but the "home communities" they return to.

The drug users in the studies were incarcerated in B.C. correctional
facilities, but Wood and his colleagues suspect syringe sharing is
common in jails across Canada.

Officials at Correctional Service Canada say "continuing risk
behaviour by inmates during incarceration presents a public health challenge."

Guy Campeau, the department's director of media relations, said the
agency is addressing the problem with "a comprehensive" infectious
disease program. He said the department has drawn the line at handing
out sterile syringes to inmates, however.

"There are no plans to implement a needle exchange program," Campeau says.