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Prevalence of HIV and hepatitis C virus infections among inmates of Quebec provincial prisons

From the Unité de recherche en santé des populations (Poulin, Alary, Godin, Landry, Demers, Morarescu), Centre hospitalier affilié universitaire de Québec; Département de médecine sociale et préventive (Alary), Université Laval, Québec; Institut national de santé publique du Québec (Alary, Lambert, Rochefort, Claessens), Québec and Montréal; Direction régionale de santé publique de Montréal-Centre (Lambert), Montréal; Chaire de recherche du Canada sur les comportements et la santé (Godin), Université Laval, Québec; Faculté des sciences infirmières (Godin, Gagnon), Université Laval, Québec; Laboratoire de Santé publique du Québec (Rochefort, Claessens), Sainte-Anne de Bellevue, Que.

Correspondence to: Dr. Michel Alary, Unité de recherche en santé des populations, Centre hospitalier affilié universitaire de Québec, 1050 chemin Ste-Foy, Québec QC G1S 4L8

Background: To determine the prevalence of HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections and examine risk factors for these infections among inmates in Quebec provincial prisons.

Methods: Anonymous cross-sectional data were collected from January to June 2003 for men (n = 1357) and women (n = 250) who agreed to participate in the study and who completed a self-administrated questionnaire and provided saliva samples.

Results: The prevalence of HIV infection was 2.3% among the male participants and 8.8% among the female participants. The corresponding prevalence of HCV infection was 16.6% and 29.2%, respectively. The most important risk factor was injection drug use. The prevalence of HIV infection was 7.2% among the male injection drug users and 0.5% among the male non-users. Among the women, the rate was 20.6% among the injection drug users, whereas none of the non-users was HIV positive. The prevalence of HCV infection was 53.3% among the male injection drug users and 2.6% among the male non-users; the corresponding values among the women were 63.6% and 3.5%.

Interpretation: HIV and HCV infections constitute an important public health problem in prison, where the prevalence is affected mainly by a high percentage of injection drug use among inmates.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				R. Elliott LLM Deadly disregard: government refusal to implement evidence-based measures to prevent HIV and hepatitis C virus infections in prisons Can. Med. Assoc. J., July 31, 2007; 177(3): 262 - 264. [Full Text] [PDF]

				N. MacDonald MD, E. Weir MD, D. Patrick MD, L. Potvin PhD, and J. Scott MD Expansion of CMAJ's support for health promotion and disease prevention Can. Med. Assoc. J., July 31, 2007; 177(3): 268 - 269. [Full Text] [PDF]

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