Combine and Conquer: A Treatment Strategy to Combat Drug-Use Associated Infections - Infectious Disease Advisor
Treatment for substance use disorders (SUD) and infectious disease (ID) has traditionally been viewed as the individual responsibility of mental health professionals and ID physicians, respectively. However, the need for an integrated treatment approach has become clear as rates of infectious diseases related to injection drug use (IDU) continue to surge due to the ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States. Significant increases in HIV, hepatitis C virus (HCV), and various invasive bacterial and fungal infections have been attributed to this surge in IDU. 1 Results of a recent study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases observed increases in hospitalizations for drug-use associated infective endocarditis (DUA-IE; 33%), osteomyelitis (35%), sepsis (24%), and skin, soft tissue, and venous infections (12%) in Michigan between 2016 and 2018, with an associated cost of $1.3 billion. 2 In a 2019 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine , findin...