Minimising harm from hepatitis C virus needs better strategies

EDITOR—Hepatitis C virus and HIV are both blood borne, and infection may occur in injecting drug users, transmitted by sharing contaminated needles and syringes. Despite extensive harm reduction programmes in Australia, hepatitis C virus continues to spread among injecting drug users, but HIV does not, partly because the prevalence of hepatitis C virus has been high among injecting drug users in Australia since at least 1971, whereas that of HIV, present only from around 1982, has remained low.1 Hepatitis C virus has a higher average …