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Objective. Estimate the prevalence of the hepatitis B (HBV) infection, hepatitis C (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and its coexistence in intravenous drug users, in order to start afterwards a vaccination and sanitary training programmes.
Patients and methods. Intravenous drug users attended in a health centre and in the drugs addition deshabituation centre of reference located in a marginal urban quarter. Patients were detected from the health centre. During one year (june 1995-1996) facts were collected. The age, sex, consumption, type, administration mechanism and also the described serologies were analysed. It has been carried out descriptive stadistics and applied the square-ji test.
Results. A study of 355 patients, 295 (83.1%) males and 60 (16.9%) females was carried out. The average age was 28.6 years (SD=6.5). All serologyes in 113 (31.8%) were available. The positive serologies for HIV, 64.6% for HBV and 64.4% had 71.1% for HCV. The three of them coexisted in a 35.4% between HIV, 39.1% of them were VHB and 88% VHC. 49.1% were VHB and VHC. The infection from any of the three virus was related with intravenous adminictration mechanism, but not with sex or drug type.
Conclusion. The infection caused from the virus above mentioned is frequent in drug users. A not negligible percentage of patients could benefit from the hepatitis B vaccine administration (67.6%) or other preventive measures.
