An AIDS service organization in New York’s Queens county is working to provide IV-drug users in the county with clean syringes and medical care to help curb new HIV infections, reports the New York Daily News (nydailynews.com, 4/6).
The AIDS Center of Queens County has battled opposition from community members and local officials as they attempt to establish syringe-exchange programs in three Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City, Far Rockaway and Corona. The group estimates that 70 percent of distributed needles are returned.
“We know that when they bring syringes back to us it means the syringes are not being disposed of improperly,” the group’s harm-reduction coordinator Steven Fox told the New York Daily News. “It also means they’re not being shared.”
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