Needle exchange programs: an economic evaluation of a local experience.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether providing a needle exchange program to prevent HIV transmission among injection drug users would cost less than the health care consequences of not having such a program. DESIGN: Incidence outcome model to estimate the number of cases of HIV infection that this program would prevent over 5 years, assuming that the HIV incidence rate would be 2% with the program and 4% without it, and that an estimated 275 …