Aug 6, 2018
“Lack of access to sterile syringes is paramount,” Stopka said. If people are injecting drugs in communities that don’t have reliable needle exchanges or pharmacies selling clean needles, they’ll likely be reusing and sharing syringes. The groundwork is then laid for an outbreak. At present, 15 states ― primarily in the south and western U.S. ― have bans in place against needle exchanges. “If it can happen in Massachusetts, which has all the support in the world and all the services in the world, it can happen anywhere,” Lethbridge said.
