High Seroprevalence of Bloodborne viruses among street-recruited injection drug users from Buenos Aires, Argentina

Injection drug use is the main mechanism of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission in Argentina (40% of reported AIDS cases in Argentina). This study was conducted among street-recruited injection drug users (IDUs) from Buenos Aires, with the aim of estimating seroprevalence and coinfection of HIV, hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), and human T-lymphotropic viruses (HTLVs). A total of 174 volunteers participated in this study; 137 were men ( 78.7% of volunteers). The average age of the participants was 30 years. Only 64 of participants (37%) had no viral infection, whereas 110 (63%) were infected with greater than or equal to 1 viruses. Seroprevalences were 44.3% for HIV, 54.6% for HCV, 42.5% for HBV, 2.3% for HTLV-I, and 14.5% for HTLV-II. Among the 77 HIV-infected persons, only 6.5% ( 5 persons) were not coinfected with other viruses; 88.3% ( 68) were coinfected with HCV and 68.8% ( 53) were coinfected with HBV. We demonstrated the existence of multiple viral infections with a high rate of prevalence in IDUs in Buenos Aires, Argentina.