Sexual behaviour and multiple infections in drug abusers

✍ Scribed by Rosa Cristina Coppola; Giuseppina Masia; Maria Luisa Martino; Giuseppina Carboni; Emma Muggianu; Rossella Piro; Paolo Emilio Manconi

• Book ID: 104640512
• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 585 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0393-2990
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00143992

✦ Synopsis

We have studied the prevalence and the serological profile of HBV, HCV, HDV and HIV infections in 137 Italian subjects addicted to the intravenous use of heroine and correlated the virological findings with sexual behaviour. HBV and HCV viremia were also measured in 114 patients. Anti-HCV was detected in 81% of the addicts, and one or more markers of HBV infection were detected in 62.8% (4.4% were carriers of HBsAg, 58.4% had evidence of past HBV infection and 13.1% of the latter also had HDV markers). Anti-HIV was positive in 23.4%; 26% of those positive for anti-HCV and 4.6% of those positive for HBV markers had no other viral marker: none had only anti-HIV. HBV-DNA was negative in the carriers of HBsAg, and HCV-RNA was not detected in any of the HBsAg carriers