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Gathering accurate data on injection-drug use is problematic because drug use is stigmatized and illegal. To estimate the prevalence of injection-drug use worldwide, researchers systematically searched peer-reviewed articles and requested data from United Nations agencies and other international experts. Of more than 11,000 documents identified, 2267 were fully reviewed by the Reference Group to the United Nations on HIV and Injecting Drug Use.
Among 148 countries where injection-drug use was documented, prevalence estimates were available for 61 countries, representing 77% of the world’s population aged 15 to 64 years. Many countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America did not report prevalence data. HIV data were reported in 120 …