Olivia is a PhD candidate at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. Her primary research interest is the prevention of infectious disease among key populations, including people who inject drugs.

BACKGROUND: Ensuring equitable access to vaccines is essential to protect the health of individuals and reduce the incidence of disease. People who inject drugs may be at excess risk of acquiring vaccine-preventable diseases and negative associated health outcomes. Moreover, the structural barriers to healthcare experienced by this population may extend to vaccine access. We aimed to determine vaccine uptake rates among people who inject drugs globally.
METHODOLOGY: We conducted searches of the peer-reviewed and grey literature, date limited from January 2008 to April 2022. We focused on diseases with adult vaccination available: COVID-19, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, influenza, pneumococcal disease, and tetanus.
RESULTS: We included 96 records. For hepatitis B vaccination we located 131 estimates for 36 countries, with considerable variability in uptake (range: 2-75%). Data on uptake of other vaccines were scarcer. For hepatitis A we found 16 estimates for 5 countries, with uptake ranging 4-53%. Additionally, we found 10 estimates for COVID-19, 5 for influenza, 2 for tetanus and 1 for pneumococcal disease.
CONCLUSION: Globally, hepatitis B vaccination uptake among people who inject drugs is lower than the World Health Organization target of 90% to achieve hepatitis B elimination by 2030. For all included diseases, improving the consistency and timeliness of vaccine uptake data collection among this population is essential to identify where gaps in coverage exist.