Intravenous Drug Use in Belgrade as a Syndemic Environment

Abstract

Singer’s concept of syndemic, which signifies the combined presence of two or more diseases within a population, where these diseases represent the consequences of the way of life or living conditions of the population in question, is applied to intravenous drug use in Belgrade. The diseases which are taken into account are HIV/AIDS, HCV, pulmonary diseases and sexually transmitted diseases. It is shown that the circumstances which are inherent to the milieu of intravenous drug use, and which otherwise influence its formation, also influence the development of syndemics within it, or rather its establishing as a factor of the syndemic, the major epidemiological basis of which is constituted by HCV.

Keywords

• syndemic
• intravenous drug use
• HCV
• HIV
• Belgrade
• anthropology