HIV RATE GROWING IN FEMALE DRUG USERS

Vancouver Study First To Show Sustained Trend

TORONTO -- Women who inject drugs in Vancouver are becoming infected with
HIV at a startlingly faster rate -- 42 per cent -- than the men they share
time, needles and sex with, the latest findings out of a landmark study of
drug users show. Furthermore, the factors that put these women at risk are
different from those influencing the HIV status of men, a reality that
poses challenges for public health officials trying to curb the spread of
the deadly virus.

"The problem is very different between women and men," said Dr. Patricia
Spittal, lead author of the article, published Tuesday in the Canadian
Medical Association Journal.

"It's about power, it's about pain. It's about rape. It's about not having
control over your sexual life or your injection life."

The findings are drawn from the Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study, which
tracks the lives of drug users in the city's Downtown Eastside, the largest
community of injection drug users in the country. The study began in May 1996.

The Vancouver study is only the second in the world to record a faster
infection rate among female injection drug users than males and is the
first to show it as a sustained trend. Generally men who inject drugs
acquire the virus at a much quicker pace than women -- but not in
Vancouver, said Dr. Martin Schechter. A major part of the problem appears
to be the power relationships between the women caught in the vortex of
injection drug use and their intimate partners, say the researchers, who
work at the University of British Columbia, the B.C. Centre for Excellence
in HIV/AIDS and St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver.

Many share needles with their sex partners, even though they know the risk.
Some agree to be "second on the needle" because they are essentially in
thrall; their partner, who may also be their pimp, holds the money and buys
the drugs.

"Negotiating safe needle use is like negotiating safe condom use," Spittal
said. "It's about trust. And sometimes, as you know, in different kinds of
relationships, it's very emotionally difficult for women to have control
over safe needle and safe sex."