[Epidemiological study of prisoners at risk for AIDS in a Spanish prison]

Different proportions of the several AIDS risk practices in a Spanish prison during 1988 were studied. Also a epidemiologic study of the infectious diseases of the prisoners with some risk of this type was carried out. Of 135 prisoners with risk of AIDS, it was found that 91.2% of them were drug addicts. The index of positive HIV in all the population study was of 65.2%. 81.5% of the sample had at least one B hepatitis marker and 11.1% had HBs-Ag. 15.4% of the last group also showed HBe-Ag positive. Histories of non-A, non-B hepatitis were not evaluated in 9.6% of all the patients studied. 53.3% had sexually transmitted diseases. It is important to mention the high index of active tuberculosis found (12.6% of the sample), which is higher than the maximum values found in various similar papers. We did not find any differences in the grade of affectation between HIV+ and HIV-.