Lessons learned from the response to the human immunodeficiency virus epidemic that can inform addressing the opioid epidemic

Abstract

When people typically hear the word epidemic these days, they envision influenza, Ebola, or now the novel Coronavirus Infectious Disease of 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2. According to Wikipedia, an epidemic is “the rapid spread of an infectious disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time.” Although OUD is not an infectious disease, its “transmission” mimics infectious diseases and it is directly related to a surge in infectious diseases such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), and serious bacterial infections such as infective endocarditis.