Letters
Minimising harm from hepatitis C virus needs better strategies
BMJ 2000; 321 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.321.7265.899 (Published 07 October 2000) Cite this as: BMJ 2000;321:899
- Nick Crofts (crofts@burnet.edu.au), head,
- Sonia Caruana, research assistant,
- Scott Bowden, molecular microbiologist,
- Michael Kerger, outreach worker
- Epidemiology and Social Research Unit, Macfarlane Burnet Centre for Medical Research, PO Box 254, Fairfield, Victoria 3078, Australia
- Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, Locked Bag 815, Carlton South, Victoria 3053, Australia
- Centre for Harm Reduction/Macfarlane Burnet Centre for Medical Research, Footscray, Victoria 3011, Australia
EDITOR—Hepatitis C virus and HIV are both blood borne, and infection may occur in injecting drug users, transmitted by sharing contaminated needles and syringes. Despite extensive harm reduction programmes in Australia, hepatitis C virus continues to spread among injecting drug users, but HIV does not, partly because the prevalence of hepatitis C virus has been high among injecting drug users in Australia since at least 1971, whereas that of HIV, present only from around 1982, has remained low.1
Hepatitis C virus has a higher average …
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