The impact of needle and syringe provision and opiate substitution therapy on the incidence of hepatitis C virus in injecting drug users

Addiction (2011), Vol 106, pp. 1978-1988

By pooling UK data the study showed that opiate substitute treatment (in Britain, mainly using methadone) and high coverage needle and syringe programme participation can reduce the transmission of hepatitis C among injectors.

After adjusting for important influences on the risk of infection (such as gender, homelessness and crack use), access to either type of service approximately halved the risk of infection, and the combination of both could reduce risk by up to 80%.

The true effect of opiate substitute treatment may have under-represented, since most of the studies recruited only current injectors, missing the risk reduction achieved by those helped to stop injecting altogether by treatment. In line with previous evidence, the study also showed that this combination of services was associated with lower levels of infection risk behaviour in the form of injecting and the sharing of injecting equipment.

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