Introduction: Drug addicts represent a high-risk group for acquiring parenterally transmitted viral infections. It is very likely that an injecting drug user (IDU) infected with HIV will be infected with either HBV or HCV or both because of common high-risk behaviors.
Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in which a total of 229 blood samples were collected from IDUs. They were screened for HIV.
Results and discussion: All HIV-positive patients were tested to observe whether a HBV or HCV infection (or both) is also present in the patients. A total of 22 patients were HIV-positive (9.6%). Of the 22 HIV-positive patients, 10 were positive for HCV (45.45%), 7 were positive for HBV (31.81%), and 2 (9%) were positive for all three.
Conclusion: Prevention efforts such as vaccination of IDUs and maximum syringe distribution should be taken to avoid sharing of syringes. Screening of all HIV-positive IDUs for HBV and HCV should be made mandatory.
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