How Are Drug Abuse and HIV Related?
NB: Ram, treat this one as a different story shade it please

HIV IS a blood-borne virus. That means it can spread when the blood or bodily fluids of someone who’s infected comes in contact with the blood, broken skin, or mucous membranes of an uninfected person.

Sharing needles or other equipment used for injection drug use and engaging in other risky behaviours are the two main ways that HIV is spread. Infected pregnant women can also pass HIV on to their babies during pregnancy, delivery, and breastfeeding.

HIV destroys certain cells, called CD4+ cells, in the immune system — that’s the body’s disease-fighting department. Without these cells, a person with HIV can’t fight off germs and diseases. In fact, loss of these cells in people with HIV is a key predictor of the development of AIDS. Because of their weakened immune system, people with AIDS often develop infections of the lungs, brain, eyes, and other organs, and many suffer dangerous weight loss, diarrhea, and a type of cancer called Kaposi’s Sarcoma.

The good news is that HIV isn’t the death sentence it was when the epidemic began. This is thanks in large part to a treatment called HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy). HAART is a combination of three or more antiretroviral medications that can hold back the virus and prevent or decrease symptoms of illness.

Drug abuse and addiction have been closely linked with HIV/AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic. Although injection drug use is well known in this regard, the role that non-injection drug abuse plays more generally in the spread of HIV is less recognized.

Injection drug use: People typically associate drug abuse and HIV/AIDS with injection drug use and needle sharing. Injection drug use refers to when a drug is injected into a tissue or vein with a needle. When injection drug users share ‘equipment’ — such as needles, syringes, and other drug injection paraphernalia — HIV can be transmitted between users. Other infections — such as Hepatitis C — can also be spread this way. Hepatitis C can cause liver disease and permanent liver damage.

Poor judgment and risky behavior: Drug abuse by any method (not just injection) can put a person at risk for contracting HIV. Drug and alcohol intoxication affect the way a person makes decisions, and can lead to unsafe sexual practices, which puts them at risk for getting HIV, or transmitting it to someone else.

Biological effects of drugs: Drug abuse and addiction can affect a person’s overall health, making them more susceptible to HIV or, in people with HIV, worsen the progression of HIV and its consequences, especially in the brain. For example, research has shown that HIV causes more harm to nerve cells in the brain, and greater cognitive damage among methamphetamine abusers than among people with HIV who do not abuse drugs. In animal studies, methamphetamine has been shown to increase the amount of HIV in brain cells.

Drug abuse treatment: Since the late 1980s, researchers found that if you treat drug abuse, you can prevent the spread of HIV. Drug abusers in treatment stop or reduce their drug use and related risk behaviours, including drug injection and unsafe sexual practices. Drug treatment programmes also serve an important role in getting out good information on HIV/AIDS and related diseases, providing counselling and testing services, and offering referrals for medical and social services.