Study of IV Drug Users and AIDS Finds Differing Infection Rate, Risk Behaviors

A CHICAGO study of intravenous (IV) drug users and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) paints a more complex picture of this population and indicates that one of the common sources of national seroprevalence monitoring may be missing sizable pockets of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, delaying timely intervention. The AIDS Outreach Intervention Project, based at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has a three-year, $3.2 millon grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Rockville, Md, to assess HIV seroprevalence among IV drug abusers and the most effective approaches to reduce viral transmission in this population. Wayne Weibel, PhD, principal investigator for the national project, presented data on the Chicago portion of the study at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in Boston. Denver, El Paso, Tex, and Baltimore are using the same protocol but are not ready to report results. In Chicago, persons skilled in working