The baseline findings of a large‐scale rapid response to an HIV outbreak in people who inject drugs in Athens, Greece: the ARISTOTLE program show that Greece needs to wake up and deal with its drug abuse problem.
Following up on the 2015 study conducted in the Greek capital with the auspices of the Society for the Study of Addiction (SSA), the 2018 program recorded a great surge in numbers of drug addicted individuals, the majority of whom were diagnosed with hepatitis C and HIV.
‘Aristotle’ is an intervention that involves reaching out ‘to high‐risk, hard‐to‐reach people who inject drugs (PWIDs) engaging them in HIV testing and providing information and materials to prevent HIV and initiating and maintaining anti‐retroviral and opioid substitution treatment for those testing positive.
The 2018 reveal that 79 per cent of the 1,000 people that benefited from the program have been exposed to hepatitis C while 17 per cent live with the HIV virus. An 82 per cent of the subjects said that they have taken intravenous drugs in the last month, 33 per cent of whom on a daily basis.
Of those, 26 per cent admit having shared a syringe in the last 12 months and 43 per cent have received free syringes.
Only 22 per cent of participants has joined a rehabilitation program.
