HIV and Drug of Abuse

Dear Colleagues,

Unfortunately, despite the availability of highly effective anti-HIV therapy, a large number of new HIV infections are happening daily. Most of these new infections, especially in developed countries, are occurring in individuals exposed to illicit drugs of abuse. Thus, negligence is playing a major role, considering that anti-HIV drugs are easily accessible. 

Due to the lack of a vaccine against HIV, precautions and anti-HIV therapies are the only available solutions. It is now well documented that drugs of abuse, in addition to deteriorating the central nervous system (CNS) function, accelerate the natural course of HIV disease progression. Significant progress has been made in uncovering the underlying molecular mechanism that different drugs of abuse influence to modulate HIV gene expression, transmission, and associated disease progression. Nevertheless, the effects of drug abuse on HIV are multifaceted and largely unclear, and further investigations are required in order to understand the in-depth molecular mechanisms and how they can be used for therapeutic benefits. Studies to understand these mechanisms may reveal new drug targets and open up new avenues for better pharmaceutical interventions in HIV-infected drug abusers.

In this Special Issue, we invite researchers to contribute to any aspect of drugs of abuse and HIV infection. This includes the impact of illicit drugs on viral infection, replication, transcription, transmission, and viral–host immune response.

We welcome all sorts of manuscripts, including research articles, short reviews, full reviews, short communications, and case reports.

Dr. Mudit Tyagi
Dr. Adhikarimayum Lakhikumar Sharma
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Vaccines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• 10 HIV
• AIDS
• drugs of abuse
• replication
• transcription
• disease progression
• HIV transmission