![Drugs [illustrative]](https://images.jpost.com/image/upload/f_auto,fl_lossy/q_auto/c_fill,g_faces:center,h_720,w_1280/254301 "Drugs [illustrative]")
Medical experts have grown concerned over an increasingly common drug trend, called “bluetoothing,” which is believed to have spikes in HIV rates across the world.
Bluetoothing, which is used to get a cheaper high, is a trend that sees drug-laden blood shared between users. The method is considered to be significantly more dangerous than sharing needles and is fueling an HIV epidemic in both Fiji and South Africa, according to The New York Times.
“In settings of severe poverty, it’s a cheap method of getting high with a lot of consequences, Brian Zanoni, an Emory University professor who has studied drug injecting behaviors in South Africa, told the NYT. “You’re basically getting two doses for the price of one.”
In a South African sample, Zanoni’s research team found 18% of drug injectors had used the blood-sharing method.
Authorities in Fiji identified bluetoothing as a key cause behind the outbreak in January, though the number of new infections increased 10-fold from 2014 to 2024, according to UNAIDS.
The danger of needle use
Injectable drug use accounts for approximately 10% of new HIV infections globally, UNAIDS found in 2020, and an estimated 23–39% of new hepatitis B and C infections (HCV) occur among people who inject drugs.
Every one in three HCV deaths is attributable to injecting drug use, according to the World Health Organization.
While the dangerous practice delivers a cheaper high, it has not become massively popular, as it delivers a much lower dose of the drug. Some medical experts reportedly doubt that any high can be delivered from the process.
“It’s not nearly as effective as people were hoping,” Eamonn Murphy, the director of UN AIDS regional support teams in the Asia Pacific region, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe, told the New York Times. “Further down the chain of injecting, there’s much less of a buzz.”