A latest research shows that over the last two decades HIV infection among New York City's heterosexuals who use oral or nasal drugs, exceeded the infection among people who inject drugs.
Researchers affiliated with the New York University's Center for Drug Use and HIV Research conducted the study among drug users entering the Mount Sinai Beth Israel drug treatment programs in the city.
According to the study results, HIV infection among non-injecting drug users rose from 7 percent in 1990 to 14 percent at present. During the same time period, HIV infection among those who inject drugs dropped to 10 percent.
The increased efficiency for transmitting HIV takes place even when people with herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2) are between outbreaks, as herpes increases both susceptibility to and transmissibility of HIV. More than half of the non-injecting drug users in the study were infected with HSV-2.
"Heterosexual intercourse is usually not very efficient for transmitting HIV, but the efficiency of heterosexual transmission nearly triples in the presence of herpes simplex virus type 2," said study's lead author Don Des Jarlais PhD., Deputy Director, Research Methods and Infectious Diseases Cores, Center for Drug Use and HIV Research and Professor of Psychiatry and of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, in a press release.
Jarlais said that after reducing HIV among people who inject drugs, health experts should focus on putting more efforts into lowering sexual transmission due to non-injecting drug use.
According to the researchers, an increase in HIV infection among these non-injecting drug users is better considered as an increase in HSV- 2/HIV co-infection rather than simply an increase in HIV prevalence.
"If we can implement these programs on a large scale, we should be able to control sexual transmission of HIV in the city, and achieve the goal of an 'End to the AIDS Epidemic'," said Dr. Des Jarlais.
The study has been published in the journal PLOS ONE.
