Hepatitis C virus prevalence and estimated incidence among new injectors during the opioid epidemic in New York City, 2000 to 2017: Protective effects of non-injecting drug use

The US is currently experiencing an opioid epidemic that has officially been declared a “public health emergency” (Gostin et al., 2017). There are multiple components to this epidemic, including excessive marketing, over-prescription and diversion of opioid analgesics, transitions from opioid analgesic use to heroin use, and transitions from oral and intranasal drug use to injectin g drug use. The increase in overdose deaths, from 17,415 in 2000 to 63,632 in 2016 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018; Hedegaard et al., 2017) may be the most dramatic indicator of the seriousness of this epidemic.
Source: Drug and Alcohol Dependence - Category: Addiction Authors: Tags: Full length article Source Type: research