Transitions to Injecting and Risk of Hepatitis C Transmission among Ethnic Vietnamese Heroin Smokers in Melbourne, Australia

Background and aims: to examine factors associated with transition from non-injecting to injecting routes of drugadministration and testing antibody positive to hepatitis c virus (hcv) among ethnic vietnamese heroin users inmelbourne, australia.methods: in a cross-sectional convenience survey, sample recruited by peer-workers using snowball samplingtechnique with a finger prick blood collection. two-hundred ethnic vietnamese heroin users were recruited andinterviews conducted mainly in footscray, an area of high ethnic vietnamese residency with a prominent street baseddrug market. a structured questionnaire was administered. measures included patterns of drug use, transition fromsmoking to injecting and vice versa, injection related risk behaviours and hcv sere-status.results: ninety-three percent of the sample commenced drug use by non-injecting routes of administration. more thana half had made the transition from smoking to injecting and almost two thirds of participants had ever injected. thefactors associated with making this transition included being male and a longer duration of use. prevalence of exposureto hcv among injectors was over 50%. factors associated with being hcv positive were longer duration of injecting,sharing injecting equipment and being older.conclusions: smoking heroin is a common route of drug administration among heroin users of vietnamese ethnicity inthis study. the transition from smoking to injecting was very common in the sample. the need for targeted harmreduction initiatives is indicated, and these must take into account patterns of heroin use as well as the social contextof drug use if we are to work effectively with heroin users of vietnamese ethnicity.