HIV-1 infection in intravenous drug abusers with clinical manifestations of hepatitis in the city of Buenos Aires.

A serologic study of hepatitis and HIV infections among 99 I.V. drug abusers with hepatitis was conducted between December 1986 and September 1987. The average age of the study subjects was 21 years. Eighty-nine (90%) of the subjects were male, including four whose sexual orientation was homosexual/bisexual. Serologic tests indicated that 87 of the 99 subjects had hepatitis B virus infections, 62 acute and 25 chronic. Nine (10%) of these 87 patients were coinfected with the delta agent. Two subjects had acute cases of hepatitis A, and the 10 remaining subjects had non-A non-B hepatitis. Forty-seven of the study subjects were also found to be infected with HIV-1. The prevalence of the delta marker was surprisingly high, because Argentina has been regarded as nonendemic for the delta virus. Given the trend of increasing I.V. drug abuse in Argentina, these results presage a significant increase in the delta agent's prevalence in the immediate future.