Two Thirds Of Drugs User In Study Died Of HIV

Research published today has shown almost two thirds of intravenous drug users have died in the 25 years since they enlisted in a unique medical study.

Doctors identified eighty-two users of intravenous heroin from south inner Dublin in 1985, before HIV testing was available, and followed them over a 25-year period.

The latest review has found that 51 people in the original cohort had died by 2010, half of them due to HIV disease. Those who died had an average age of 36.

Dr Fergus O’Kelly of the department of public health and primary care at Trinity College Dublin, led the research. The study showed the group had high levels of HIV infection (63 per cent) and this was the principal cause of death over the follow-up period.

“HIV-related mortality peaked in this study cohort in the early to mid-1990s . . . a reflection of the development of untreated HIV from the early epidemic of the 1980s,” they said.

“The injecting cohort had a mortality rate 11 times that of the non-drug-using cohort [62 per cent compared to 5.5 per cent].”

Writing in the current issue of the Irish Journal of Medical Science, the authors conclude that the lifestyle of intravenous drug-users has hazardous consequences resulting in high levels of morbidity and mortality.

“A relatively stable picture of HIV associated with intravenous drug-users is now emerging in Ireland, as is the case throughout most of the EU.

“HIV is a more manageable chronic disease, posing challenges for primary care in its treatment of former and existing intravenous drug-users who are ageing and now have other chronic diseases.”