Cohort Study on People Who Inject Drugs in Senegal

THE UNODC estimated the number of consumers of injectable drugs at 1,02 millions in 2012 in Africa among which 12,1 % lived with HIV. Prevalences of HIV, chronic hepatitis C and B among people who inject drugs remain little documented in Sub-Saharan Africa. The transmission of HCV in Africa is mainly hospital-borne, bound to a precarious transfusional and therapeutic safety. However, the transmission by intravenous drug use emerges as a new stake in public health in urban areas. The report of a strong HIV prevalence in the population of PWID in the sub-region ( for example, In 2007, in the Cape Verde, prevalence of the HIV was 14 % in emprisoned PWID against 0,8 % in the general population) contributed to assert the reality of the use of intravenous drugs in the region and the vulnerability of this population. Senegal, a country with an concentrated HIV epidemic [0,5 % prevalence in 2012, WHO source] is the first country of western Africa to have measured prevalence of HIV (5,2 %), HBV (7,9 %) and HCV (23,3 %) in PWID (Study ANRS 12243). In view of these results, the Senegalese authorities introduced from October, 2011 in Dakar, activities of harm reduction by means of a mobile team of social workers and mediators allowing individual and collective activities of prevention, needle exchange program, references for care and follow-up, as well as a opioid substitution program in a methadone center (CEPIAD) located in Dakar, first of its kind in Western Africa. The objective of the present research project thus is to estimate the impact of a strategy of " test and treat " of HIV and harm reduction initiatives on the prevalence and incidence of HIV, HBV and HCV infections in an population of injectable drug consumers followed in the methadone center ( CEPIAD) of Dakar, Senegal