Sexually Transmitted Infections and Sexual Practices in Injection Drug Users and Their Regular Sex Partners in Chennai, India

In Brief Objective: Measuring sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and sexual practices in injection drug users (IDUs) and their regular sex partners. Goal: Informing HIV intervention programs. Design: Cross-sectional. Results: One percent IDUs and 2% of their regular female sex partners were syphilis infected; 40% (84/211) and 38% respectively (81/211) were infected with HSV-2. 30% IDUs and 5% of their female regular sex partners were HIV positive. Serodiscordant results for syphilis and HSV-2 were noticed. Women having first sex at age ≤17 years and those who had HIV-positive IDUs as their male sexual partner had two times the odds of having any non-HIV-STI (OR 2.04; 95% CI 1.1–3.8; P = 0.02 and OR 2.38; 95% CI 1.1–5.1; P = 0.02 respectively) in a multivariate model. Women ≥38 years had seven times the odds of having any non-HIV-STI. Conclusion: Reaching out to IDUs and their female regular sex partners with modified STI management guideline and promoting women-controlled safer sex measures are needed harm-reduction measures. Very low condom use in regular relationship and serodiscordant results for syphilis, HIV, and HSV-2 infection in IDUs and their regular female sex partners in Chennai, India, provided important directions for future interventions.