Opioid addiction kills tens of thousands of people every year in the United States and the trend shows no signs of slowing. Now, public-health officials are worried about a surge in bacterial and viral infections linked to opioid abuse that threatens to compound the crisis. This surge includes in an unprecedented rise in bacterial infections — including those caused by Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterium that’s frequently resistant to antibiotics –and a spike in new cases of HIV and hepatitis associated with injecting opioids that threatens to undo decades of progress in corralling these diseases.
Source: Nature
Read more at: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02019-3
