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ensure accuracy. Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent
States,2 and significant parts of Asia (UNAIDS, 2006). In some
cases, epidemics initially fueled by the sharing of contaminated
injecting equipment are spreading through sexual transmission
from IDUs to non-injecting populations, and through perinatal
transmission to newborns. Reversing the rise of HIV infections
among IDUs has thus become an urgent global public health
challenge—one that remains largely unmet. STUDY GOALS AND
APPROACH In response to this challenge, in 2005 the Joint United
Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation commissioned the Institute of Medicine to
undertake an expedited review of the scientific evidence on the
effectiveness of strategies to prevent HIV transmission through
contaminated injecting equipment, with