Prevalence of injecting drug use and HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C in people who inject drugs in the Eastern Mediterranean region: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Considerable disease burden is attributed to injecting drug use (IDU). This regional systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to assess the prevalence of IDU and the characteristics of people who inject drugs in the 22 countries of the WHO Eastern Mediterranean region.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis on the prevalence of IDU, estimation of the population size of people who inject drugs, the characteristics of people who inject drugs, commonly injected drugs, the prevalence of HIV, hepatitis C virus, and hepatitis B virus in people who inject drugs, and opioid agonist treatment and needle and syringe programme services. We searched PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, and the Index Medicus for the Eastern Mediterranean Region for documents published between Jan 1, 2010, and April 17, 2022, with no language restrictions. We also searched government reports, civil society information, and UN websites and databases for grey literature published between Jan 1, 2010, and April 17, 2022. Documents were eligible if they reported or estimated an indicator of interest, or reported enough data to permit calculation of the indicator. We extracted data from the eligible documents and calculated national and regional estimates.

Findings: We identified 38 283 documents and included 201 documents in the systematic review. A total of 115 documents were included for the four outcomes for which meta-analyses were performed. The number of people who inject drugs was estimated as 864 597 (95% CI 641 909–1 205 255), amounting to a prevalence of 20·0 per 10 000 adults (95% CI 14·9–27·9) in the region. Among people who inject drugs, the prevalence of HIV was estimated as 19·22% (95% CI 12·86–26·36), hepatitis C virus as 44·82% (29·32–61·16), and hepatitis B virus as 2·66% (0·84–7·26). Countries varied greatly regarding the variables of interest and the availability of relevant data. Nine countries provided needle and syringe programme services and seven countries provided opioid agonist treatment services, mostly with very low, low, or unclear coverage.

Interpretation: The prevalence of IDU in the Eastern Mediterranean region is lower than the global mean, particularly among women. The HIV infection rate is higher than the global mean, and the hepatitis C virus infection rate is lower than the global mean. Harm-reduction services are underdeveloped. Data collection on IDU and provision of services need improvement in the region.

• Epidemiology and Determinants of Health
  • Epidemiology
• Population(s)
  • People who use drugs
  • General HIV+ population
• Substance Use
  • Nonmedicinal drugs
• Co-infections
  • Hepatitis B, C