A NEW study into infection rates has shown drug users in Glasgow city centre are more likely to inject in public.

The research said the recent increase in HIV and Hepatitis C in the city can be attributed to high levels of outdoor drug injecting.

It concluded that the findings added weight to the calls for a Drug Consumption Room in the city.

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The research from academics at the School of Health and Life Sciences at Glasgow Caledonian University with health experts is published in the latest edition of the International Journal of Drug Policy.

It found those in the study, from Glasgow were five and a half times more likely to be injecting in public than from the rest of Scotland with almost half of injecting users saying they had done so in public.

There were 16% of people who inject drugs across Scotland reporting they is so in public compared to 47% in Glasgow city centre, saying they did so.

The study found that outdoor injecting among drug users is linked with HIV rates.

In Glasgow there has been an increase in HIV rates in recent years with a ten-fold increase in new cases in the city.

Rough sleeping among problem drug users and injecting of cocaine had been linked to the rise in previous studies.

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The new study said those injecting more than four times a day were more likely to do it in public.

The study said: “We found homelessness and alcohol consumption had a significantly higher odds of reporting public injecting.

“We also found that public injecting was strongly associated with HIV infection, current HCV infection, and self-reported overdose and SSTI (skin and soft tissue infections) in the last year”

The researchers said it was the first study to investigate public injecting amid an HIV outbreak to have established the link that “public injecting is independently associated with HIV infection.”

The study authors said the evidence showed the need to address public injecting and the harm it causes.

They added: “Our findings specifically have relevance in the current context in the UK, by providing further weight to proposals to establish the UK’s first Drug Consumption Room in Glasgow and reinforce the need for better harm reduction policies in the UK.”