Injection Drug Users Do Not Benefit as Well From HAART

An analysis of 22 previous HIV study cohorts shows that while the overall prognosis for HIV-positive people improved significantly since the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy in the mid 1990s, injection drug users on HAART have not fared as well as other groups. Reporting in the October 17 edition of The Lancet, the researchers write that individuals infected with HIV through injection drug use now have four times the risk of death that gay men infected through unprotected sex do. Before the advent of HAART, gay men were more likely to die of AIDS-related complications. Injection drug users also are currently more likely to die of AIDS-related complications than both men and women infected through heterosexual sex. The researchers conclude that coinfection with other blood-borne diseases that are easily spread though shared needles may be causing much of the difference in the survival rates, but they note that HIV disease itself appears to be a contributing factor. Longer follow-up studies are needed to better examine the disparities, according to the researchers.