Hepatitis C is probably the most prevalent health infection among injecting drug users (IDU) worldwide. The prevention of hepatitis C has proven difficult; unlike hepatitis B there is currently no vaccine available and programs which have been successful in reducing HIV have had only a small impact on the HCV epidemic [13,14]. It has therefore increasingly been acknowledged that prevention of initiation to drug injection is likely to be one of the most effective prevention strategies for blood-borne viral transmission [15]. Heroin injecting in particular is associated with increased HCV prevalence compared to injection of amphetamine – the two most commonly injected drugs in Australia [16].
