ArticleThe International journal on drug policy2020
Drug-related deaths in a population-level cohort of people living with and without hepatitis C virus in British Columbia, Canada.
Article in The International journal on drug policy, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Trends in Mortality After the Roll-Out of Directly Acting Antivirals for Hepatitis C in England Using Linked Surveillance Data.Journal of viral hepatitis · 2026Observational
- Enhancing identification of suspected unregulated drug toxicity deaths in administrative health records: a case study among people with HIV in British Columbia, Canada.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Single cell RNA transcriptome response to fentanyl use in persons with HIV infection.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Housing matters: The long-term impact of stable housing on mortality among people with HIV in British Columbia, Canada.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
- The Impact of Drugs and Substance Abuse on Viral Pathogenesis-A South African Perspective.Viruses · 2024Review
- Expanding access to healthcare for people who use drugs and sex workers: hepatitis C elimination implications from a qualitative study of healthcare experiences in British Columbia, Canada.Harm reduction journal · 2024Article
- The Synthetic Opioid Fentanyl Increases HIV Replication and Chemokine Co-Receptor Expression in Lymphocyte Cell Lines.Viruses · 2023Article
- Review of heart transplantation from hepatitis C-positive donors.World journal of transplantation · 2022Review
- Drugs of Abuse and Their Impact on Viral Pathogenesis.Viruses · 2021Review
- Article
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Authors and funding
16 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe majority of new HCV infections in Canada occur in people who inject drugs. Thus, while curative direct antiviral agents (DAAs) herald a promising new era in hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment, improving the lives and wellbeing of people living with HCV (PLHCV) must be considered in the context of reducing overdose-related harms and with a syndemic lens. We measure drug-related deaths (DRDs) among HCV-negative people and PLHCV in British Columbia (BC), Canada, and the impact of potent contaminants like fentanyl on deaths.
methodsWe identified DRDs among PLHCV and HCV-negative individuals from 2010 to 2018 in the BC Hepatitis Testers Cohort, a population-based dataset of ~1.7 million British Columbians comprising comprehensive administrative and clinical data. We estimated annual standardized liver- and drug-related mortality rates per 100,000 person-years (PY) and described the contribution of specific drugs, including fentanyl and its analogues, implicated in DRDs over time.
resultsDRDs constituted 20.1% of deaths among PLHCV and 4.7% of deaths among HCV-negative individuals; a 4.3-fold (95% confidence interval: 4.0-4.5) difference. Drug-related mortality overtook liver-related mortality for PLHCV in 2015 and HCV-negative individuals in 2016 and rose from 241.7 to 436.5 per 100,000 PY from 2010 to 2018 amongPLHCV and from 20.0 to 57.1 per 100,000 PY for HCV-negative individuals over the same period. The proportion of deaths attributable to drugs among PLHCV and HCV-negative individuals increased from 15.1% to 26.1% and 3.1% to 8.0%, in 2010 and 2018, respectively. The proportion of DRDs attributed solely to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl averaged across both groups increased from 2.1% in 2010 to 69.6% in 2017.
conclusionSteep drug-related mortality increases among PLHCV and HCV-negative individuals over the last decade highlight the urgent need to address overdose-related drivers and harms in these populations using an integrated care approach.
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