Posted on September 01, 2017
Source: The Boston Globe
"Infectious-disease doctors, skilled at vanquishing dangerous microbes, are now confronting a different foe for which they have little training: addiction.
Many patients come to hospitals with severe infections that result from injecting drugs, and their numbers have surged amid the opioid epidemic that has ravaged Massachusetts and other states.
Traditionally, the doctors treating such cases have focused on getting rid of the infection, while neglecting the drug use that led to it.
But as these patients keep coming back with new illnesses, or leave cured of their infection only to die of an overdose, infectious-disease doctors in the Boston area are tackling the addiction problem, and calling on their colleagues to similarly step up."
