Design and baseline findings of a large-scale rapid response to an HIV outbreak in people who inject drugs in Athens, Greece: the ARISTOTLE programme.
Addiction
; 110(9): 1453-67, 2015 Sep.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-26032121
ABSTRACT
AIMS:
To (i) describe an intervention implemented in response to the HIV-1 outbreak among people who inject drugs (PWIDs) in Greece (ARISTOTLE programme), (ii) assess its success in identifying and testing this population and (iii) describe socio-demographic characteristics, risk behaviours and access to treatment/prevention, estimate HIV prevalence and identify risk factors, as assessed at the first participation of PWIDs.DESIGN:
A 'seek, test, treat, retain' intervention employing five rounds of respondent-driven sampling.SETTING:
Athens, Greece (2012-13).PARTICIPANTS:
A total of 3320 individuals who had injected drugs in the past 12 months. INTERVENTION ARISTOTLE is an intervention that involves reaching out to high-risk, hard-to-reach PWIDs ('seek'), engaging them in HIV testing and providing information and materials to prevent HIV ('test') and initiating and maintaining anti-retroviral and opioid substitution treatment for those testing positive ('treat' and 'retain'). MEASUREMENTS Blood samples were collected for HIV testing and personal interviews were conducted.FINDINGS:
ARISTOTLE recruited 3320 PWIDs during the course of 13.5 months. More than half (54%) participated in multiple rounds, resulting in 7113 visits. HIV prevalence was 15.1%. At their first contact with the programme, 12.5% were on opioid substitution treatment programmes and the median number of free syringes they had received in the preceding month was 0. In the multivariable analysis, apart from injection-related variables, homelessness was a risk factor for HIV infection in male PWIDs [odds ratio (OR) yes versus no = 1.89, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.41, 2.52] while, in female PWIDS, the number of sexual partners (OR for > 5 versus one partner in the past year = 4.12, 95% CI = 1.93, 8.77) and history of imprisonment (OR yes versus no = 2.76, 95% CI = 1.43, 5.31) were associated with HIV.CONCLUSIONS:
In Athens, Greece, the ARISTOTLE intervention for identifying HIV-positive people among people who inject drugs (PWID) facilitated rapid identification of a hidden population experiencing an outbreak and provided HIV testing, counselling and linkage to care. According to ARISTOTLE data, the 2011 HIV outbreak in Athens resulted in 15% HIV infection among PWID. Risk factors for HIV among PWID included homelessness in men and history of imprisonment and number of sexual partners in women.Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Infecciones por VIH
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Abuso de Sustancias por Vía Intravenosa
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Brotes de Enfermedades
Tipo de estudio:
Diagnostic_studies
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Etiology_studies
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Prevalence_studies
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Prognostic_studies
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Risk_factors_studies
Límite:
Adolescent
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Adult
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Aged
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Female
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Humans
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Male
/
Middle aged
País/Región como asunto:
Europa
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Addiction
Asunto de la revista:
TRANSTORNOS RELACIONADOS COM SUBSTANCIAS
Año:
2015
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Grecia