Community-led programs across four countries show gains in HIV retention, mental health and service uptake among people who engage in chemsex.
Managed Healthcare Executive news story
Chemsex is the intentional use of psychoactive substances during sex to increase pleasure, decrease stress or prolong the sexual encounter. Examples include alkyl nitrites, colloquially referred to as “poppers,” methamphetamine and ketamine. Because chemsex can be associated with long sessions of unprotected sex and lowered inhibitions, it is associated with sharply elevated HIV risk, particularly for people who inject drugs. People who inject drugs face a risk of HIV acquisition roughly 14 times higher than the general adult population, and studies in Brazil have found chemsex prevalence among men who have sex with men ranging from 27% to almost 70%.
Despite this risk, structured, health-led responses to chemsex remain rare in much of the world, but outreach groups are trying to change that. Several of these groups presented their abstracts at AIDS 2026, during ‘Chemsex everywhere: Interventions across contexts.’ The session was led by Carolina Coutinho, Ph.D., a scientist and researcher at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Read the full news story here.
View all Managed Healthcare Executive reports from AIDS 2026
Source : Managed Healthcare Executive
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