Injection drug use, HIV and HCV infection in Ontario

In statistics, any analytic method that allows the simultaneous study of two or more dependent vari- ables.2 PREVALENCE RATE: The prevalence rate is the total number of existing cases of a disease at a specified time divid- ed by a defined population that is ‘at risk’ of experiencing the condition.1 SEROCONVERSION: The development of detectable antibodies to HIV in the body fluids as a result of H [...] In this report avail- able data were examined to determine the extent of injection drug use and the levels of HIV and HCV infection among IDUs in Ontario. [...] There are five main objectives: 1. To characterize the epidemiology of injection drug use in Ontario; 2. To describe the epidemiology of HIV infection among injection drug users in Ontario; 3. To describe the epidemiology of HCV infection among injection drug users in Ontario; 4. To examine the trends in HIV and HCV-related risk behaviours and practices among Ontario’s injection drug users; and 5. [...] Then the prevalence of HIV among IDUs in Ontario, the incidence of HIV among IDUs in Ontario, the number of HIV diagnoses and the reported cases of AIDS are examined followed by a modeling of the HIV epidemic among IDUs. [...] The greatest number of infections was in Toronto (32% of HIV-infected IDUs in Ontario) but the highest infection rates were in Ottawa (17.7% compared to 1.6% to 10.4% in the other regions).