Beyond prevention? Injecting drug user narratives about hepatitis C

This paper draws on a thematic analysis of 59 depth qualitative interview accounts of London drug injectors' personal experiences of risk perception and risk management associated with hepatitis C. We use this data here to explore how younger injectors spoke about HCV risk reduction. Findings emphasised that hepatitis C was poorly understood by most injectors, and that such misunderstandings were contextualised by wider uncertainty and indeterminacy concerning HCV knowledge. In part for this reason, we found that HCV was continually made sense of in relation to HIV. This relative viral relationship depicted hepatitis C as ubiquitous among drug injectors; as an inevitable consequence of drug injecting. These findings call into question younger injectors' perceptions of the preventability of HCV. We argue that HCV prevention requires interventions that are different to those that have worked for HIV, especially because of the distinctive qualities of how hepatitis C is commonly socially constructed as a "sturdy" virus beyond prevention. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.