RESEARCHERS CALL ON JAILS TO OFFER CONVICTS STERILE SYRINGES

Addicted Prisoners At High Risk Of Contracting AIDS

AIDS researchers are calling on the Correctional Service of Canada to
make sterile syringes freely available in prisons for pilot studies
to try to curb the spread of HIV among drug-using inmates.

Researchers from the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS write in
the journal Lancet today that the problem is made worse because
accepted disease-prevention methods, such as needle exchanges, are
rarely available to prisoners. "There is an urgent need to ensure
that standards of HIV prevention in prisons are consistent with the
best available evidence and the standards outlined in international
guidelines," say the researchers.

Co-author Thomas Kerr said in an interview the fastest growing HIV
epidemic in many parts of the world is among intravenous drug users,
who are frequently in and out of prison. And there is mounting
evidence from Canada and elsewhere that prisons are incubators for the disease.

"We have found evidence locally, which is consistent with what people
have found in other countries, that incarceration is associated with
HIV infection, that drug use occurs in prisons and a lot of high-risk
behaviour such as syringe exchange happens," says Kerr. "It's a very
dangerous dynamic."

Convicts interviewed for one recent study by B.C. HIV researchers
reported seeing syringes go through more than 30 people's hands.

Corrections Canada is well aware it has a problem. And it is taking
steps to prevent the spread of infection by providing convicts with
condoms and sterile tattooing equipment and drug treatment.

Kerr says more needs to be done, such as pilot projects to assess the
use of needle exchanges, which make sterile syringes available to
intravenous drug users. They are widely used to prevent the spread of
HIV in city and community settings.

The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, an advocacy group pushing for
years for needle exchanges in Canadian prisons. Corrections Canada is
exploring the idea and has asked the Public Health Agency of Canada
for input, says Christa McGregor, a media officer with CSC.

The health agency is reviewing evidence on the effectiveness of
needle exchanges and visiting foreign prisons that already provide
inmates with syringes, McGregor said. She says Corrections Canada
expects the health agency's recommendations by the end of March.