Abstract
Background: Epidemiological data are crucial in designing policies for the control of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections. There is a lack of data on the epidemiology of HIV in Korean correctional facilities such as jails and prisons.Methods: Clinical characteristics of the study population were collected through a medical record review.Results: The number of people with HIV infection were 83 and the HIV infection prevalence in correctional facilities of Korea was 0.15%. Among them, 10 (12.0%) were diagnosed with the infection when they were incarcerated. The number of drug users was 38 (45.8%). Syphilis-HIV coinfection was observed in 21 (25.3%) patients. Individuals from the group comprising the drug users were more likely to belong to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) community, and had a higher incidence of psychological disorders (31.6% vs. 11.1%, P = 0.029; 50.0% vs. 28.9%, P = 0.049, respectively).Conclusion: Inmates of correctional facilities showed a five times higher prevalence of HIV infection in Korea, nearly half of whom were drug users.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-5 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Journal of Korean Medical Science |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue number | 14 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2021 The Korean Academy of Medical Sciences.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords
- Drug Users
- Epidemiology
- HIV
- Prevalence; Prisons
- Republic of Korea
