Needle Exchange Program: Playing by the Numbers

Playing By The Numbers

66%	Percentage of respondents in a national survey who say they support (43%) or strongly support (21%) needle exchange programs for intravenous drug users.[1]
100,000	HIV infections which would have been prevented by NEPs since 1987 among IDUs, their sex partners and their children.[2]
23,000	Lives lost each year because of the non-availability of NEPs.[3]
31%	Percentage of new AIDS cases directly or indirectly associated with injection drug use.[4]
70%	Percentage of women infected with HIV associated directly or indirectly to injection drug use.[5]
75%	Percentage of babies diagnosed with HIV as a direct or indirect result of injection drug use.[6]
34%	Percentage of new AIDS cases among African-Americans directly or indirectly a result of injection drug use.[7]
19.4 million	Syringes exchanged by NEPs in the United States in 1998.[8]

[1] Promising Strategies: Results of the Fourth National Survey on Community Efforts to Reduce Substance Abuse and Gun Violence, 1999.

[2] The Lancet, March 1999 (Research by the University of California, San Francisco)

[3] American Medical Association, AIDS . . .Stories from the Front Line.

[4] CDC, HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, 1999

[5] HHS Press Release, April 20, 1998.

[6] HHS Press Release, April 20, 1998.

[7] CDC, HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, 1999

[8] Unpublished study, Dr. Denise Paone, Beth Israel Hospital, New York, New York, Presented at the North American Syringe Exchange Conference X, Portland, Oregon, April 27, 2000.