Background: Opioid overdose related injury or death can be prevented by bystander naloxone administration. For naloxone to be present when and where overdoses occur, opioid prevention education and naloxone distribution (OPEND) must be established on a broad level. This is the 30-month follow-up of the first multi-site naloxone project in Sweden, implemented at 31 sites in the County of Skåne 2018.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: To engage people who inject drugs (PWID) in HCV care, innovative models of care are urgently needed. A needle exchange program (NEP) could serve as an ideal platform for comprehensive HCV management including post treatment follow up.
Methods: 50 actively injecting patients at the Malmö Needle exchange program (MNEP) were consecutively enrolled between April 2018 and May 2019.
Background & Aims: In 2014, the burden of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in Sweden was evaluated, to establish a baseline and inform public health interventions. Considering the changing landscape of HCV treatment, prevention, and care, and in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, this analysis seeks to evaluate Sweden's progress towards the World Health Organization (WHO) elimination targets and identify remaining barriers.
Methods: The data used for modelling HCV transmission and disease burden in Sweden were obtained through literature review, unpublished sources and expert input.
Background: Continuously high rates of overdose deaths in Sweden led to the decision by the Skåne County to initiate the first regional take-home naloxone program in Sweden. The project aims to study the effect of overdose prevention education and naloxone distribution on overdose mortality in Skåne County. Secondary outcome measures include non-fatal overdoses and overdose-related harm in the general population, as well as cohort-specific effects in study participants regarding overdoses, mortality and retention in naloxone program.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Abuse of amphetamines is a worldwide problem with around 34 million users, and amphetamine is commonly used by people who inject drugs (PWID). Despite this, there is relatively little research on mortality and cause of death among people who use amphetamines primarily. The present study aimed to examine mortality and causes of death among people who inject amphetamine, and compare these results to the general population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo investigate the prevalence, distribution, and colonization burden of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and MRSA in different body sites among people who inject drugs (PWID) and compare it to a control group consisting of non-injectors. In this cross-sectional survey, 49 active PWID from the needle exchange program (NEP) in Malmö, Sweden, and 60 non-injecting controls from an emergency psychiatric inpatient ward at Malmö Addiction Centre were tested for S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Injection drug users (IDUs) are at increased risk of various medical conditions, including bacterial skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs). SSTIs, which are painful and can lead to life-threatening complications, are common but scarcely studied.
Objectives: To investigate life time, past 12 month and past 30-day prevalence for SSTI related to injection drug use, in IDUs at Malmö syringe exchange program (Malmö SEP).
Background: Injecting drug use (IDU) may lead to exposure to a range of carcinogenic agents. We investigated the risk and distribution of cancers among individuals with a history of IDU in Sweden.
Material And Methods: The cancer incidence in a cohort of longitudinally followed participants in a needle exchange program (NEP), recruited between 1987 and 2007, was compared to that in the Swedish general population, matching for age group and gender.