U. S. researchers said on Tuesday that prison inmates who are infected with the AIDS virus, after release stop taking the prescribed drugs thereby raising health risks for them as well as their communities. 

The researchers added that the former inmates often lack private or public health insurance and have trouble getting antiretroviral therapy that can keep the virus in check and this not only gives the virus a chance to become more infectious but also the chance for it to become more resistant to drugs. 

"Those who discontinue ART [antiretroviral therapy] at this time are at increased risk of developing a higher viral burden, resulting in greater infectiousness and higher levels of drug resistance, potentially creating reservoirs of drug-resistant HIV in the general community," said the researchers. 

They added that to curb the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, the U. S. prison system has become an important front. "Many inmates are offered HIV testing for the first time while incarcerated, and three-quarters of inmates with HIV infection initiate treatment during incarceration," 

Jacques Baillargeon of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and colleagues wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In the study by Baillargeon and colleagues they studied 2,115 HIV-infected inmates in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison system between January 2004 and December 
2007 who were on HIV medication before they were released. 

The researchers noted that only 5.4 % of them filled a prescription within 10 days of being released from prison, 17% during the first month and 30 % within the first two months of release. They also noted that almost 90% of the infected inmates had some interruption in their treatment and many of these breaks lasted beyond 30 and sometimes even 60 days. 

The study also found that the inmates whose viral was detectable or those who received help through an AIDS Drug Assistance Program were more likely to fill their prescriptions than their counterparts.

"These exceedingly high rates of treatment interruption suggest that most inmates face significant administrative, socioeconomic, or personal barriers to accessing antiretroviral therapy when they return to their communities," they said.

The solution to this problem was better coordination on all fronts to tackle the situation. "Greater coordination between state and local agencies, health-care institutions, and community-based organizations is needed to reduce this high rate of treatment interruption among newly released inmates," the researchers wrote.