Prevention of transmission of HIV, hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, and tuberculosis in prisoners

Kamarulzaman A 1 , Reid SE 2 , Schwitters A 3 , Wiessing L 4 , El-Bassel N 5 , Dolan K 6 Show all authors , Moazen B 7 , Wirtz AL 8 , Verster A 3 , Altice FL 9

Affiliations 

  • 1 Centre of Excellence for Research in AIDS, Faculty of Medicine, University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA. Electronic address: adeeba@ummc.edu.my
  • 2 Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia; University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA
  • 3 Department of HIV/AIDS, WHO, Geneva, Switzerland
  • 4 European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Lisbon, Portugal
  • 5 Columbia University School of Social Work, New York, NY, USA
  • 6 National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  • 7 Non-Communicable Diseases Research Centre, Endocrinology and Metabolism Population Sciences Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Institute of Public Health, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
  • 8 Center for Public Health and Human Rights, Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA
  • 9 Centre of Excellence for Research in AIDS, Faculty of Medicine, University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
Lancet, 2016 Sep 10;388(10049):1115-1126.
PMID: 27427456 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(16)30769-3

Abstract

The prevalence of HIV, hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, and tuberculosis are higher in prisons than in the general population in most countries worldwide. Prisons have emerged as a risk environment for these infections to be further concentrated, amplified, and then transmitted to the community after prisoners are released. In the absence of alternatives to incarceration, prisons and detention facilities could be leveraged to promote primary and secondary prevention strategies for these infections to improve prisoners health and reduce risk throughout incarceration and on release. Effective treatment of opioid use disorders with opioid agonist therapies (eg, methadone and buprenorphine) prevents blood-borne infections via reductions in injection in prison and after release. However, large gaps exist in the implementation of these strategies across all regions. Collaboration between the criminal justice and public health systems will be required for successful implementation of these strategies.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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