title: A needle in the haystack--the dire straits of needle exchange in Hungary.
abstract: The two largest needle exchange programs (NEPs) in Hungary were forced to close down in the second half of 2014 due to extreme political attacks and related lack of government funding. The closures occurred against a background of rapid expansion in Hungary of injectable new psychoactive substances, which are associated with very frequent injecting episodes and syringe sharing. The aim of our analysis was to predict how the overall Hungarian NEP syringe supply was affected by the closures.
  
  
  
  We analyzed all registry data from all NEPs in Hungary for all years of standardized NEP data collection protocols currently in use (2008-2014) concerning 22 949 client enrollments, 9,211 new clients, 228,167 client contacts, 3,160,560 distributed syringes, and 2,077,676 collected syringes.
  
  
  
  We found that while the combined share of the two now closed NEPs decreased over time, even in their partial year 2014 they still distributed and collected about half of all syringes, and attended to over half of all clients and client contacts in Hungary. The number of distributed syringes per PWID (WHO minimum target = 100) was 81 in 2014 in Hungary, but 39 without the two now closed NEPs.
  
  
  
  There is a high probability that the combination of decreased NEP coverage and the increased injection risk of new psychoactive substances may lead in Hungary to a public health disaster similar to the HIV outbreaks in Romania and Greece. This can be avoided only by an immediate change in the attitude of the Hungarian government towards harm reduction.
authors.affiliation: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA. vgyarmat@jhsph.edu.|Semmelweis University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Budapest, Hungary. vgyarmat@jhsph.edu.
authors.forename: V Anna
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Gyarmathy
authors.affiliation: Blue Point Drug Counselling and Outpatient Centre, Budapest, Hungary. csakrobert@gmail.com.|Eötvös Loránd University, Institute of Psychology, Budapest, Hungary. csakrobert@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Róbert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Csák
authors.affiliation: Semmelweis University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Budapest, Hungary. bkati18@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Katalin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bálint
authors.affiliation: Semmelweis University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Budapest, Hungary. beneszter@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Eszter
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bene
authors.affiliation: Semmelweis University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: András Ernő
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Varga
authors.affiliation: Drug Prevention Foundation, Budapest, Hungary. vargaseparate@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Mónika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Varga
authors.affiliation: Drug Prevention Foundation, Budapest, Hungary. csiszernora@freemail.hu.
authors.forename: Nóra
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Csiszér
authors.affiliation: Semmelweis University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Budapest, Hungary. vingenderi@se-etk.hu.
authors.forename: István
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Vingender
authors.affiliation: Semmelweis University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Budapest, Hungary. raczjozsef0428@gmail.com.|Blue Point Drug Counselling and Outpatient Centre, Budapest, Hungary. raczjozsef0428@gmail.com.|Eötvös Loránd University, Institute of Psychology, Budapest, Hungary. raczjozsef0428@gmail.com.
authors.forename: József
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rácz
mesh_terms: D003140:Communicable Disease Control / Q000379:methods; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D006115:Greece; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000635:transmission; D040261:Harm Reduction; D006801:Humans; D006814:Hungary / Q000453:epidemiology; D016485:Needle Sharing; D018671:Needle-Exchange Programs; D009339:Needles; D011619:Psychotropic Drugs; D012383:Romania; D015819:Substance Abuse, Intravenous / Q000150:complications*; D013594:Syringes
chemical_list: D011619:Psychotropic Drugs