The findings from a Canadian study suggest that medically supervised drug injection facilities can help cut syringe sharing among injection drug users, and subsequently reduce the risk of infectious diseases such as HIV infection.

The introduction of one of these facilities reduced syringe sharing by 70 percent, lead investigator Dr. Thomas Kerr of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and colleagues report in this week’s issue of The Lancet.

In September 2003, North America’s first medically supervised injection facility opened in Vancouver.

Along with access to nursing care and addiction counseling, the facility offers users sterile injecting equipment and supervision of injections by a nurse.

The current study involved 431 active injection drug users in Vancouver who were followed between December 1, 2003 and June 1, 2004. About 20 percent of subjects reported receiving all or most of their injections at the new facility. Just over 11 percent of users reported sharing syringes during the study period.

On further analysis, the use of the facility and younger age were associated with reduced syringe sharing. By contrast, binge drug use and the need for help injecting were associated with increased syringe sharing.

“We have shown that use of a medically supervised safer injection facility was independently associated with reduced syringe sharing in a community-recruited sample of injection drug users who had similar rates of syringe sharing before the facility’s opening,” Kerr’s group points out.

In a related editorial, Dr. Wayne Hall, from the University of Queensland in Australia, and Dr. Jo Kimber, from Imperial College in London, comment that these findings add to previous research showing that “supervised injecting facilities can operate safely and to the benefit of the health and well-being of the socially marginalized injecting drug users that use them.”

SOURCE: The Lancet, March 18, 2005.