At least 3 million injecting drug users are HIV positive: research

New research is suggesting that that more than three million injecting drug users around the world are HIV positive.

Nine countries have reported that more than 40 per cent of users are HIV positive.

In Australia 1.5 per cent of injecting illicit drug users are HIV positive.

Louisa Degenhardt from the Drug and Alcohol Research Centre in Sydney says almost 150 countries now acknowledge the role of drug injection in the spread of AIDS.

"We know that injecting drug use is problem, it's a problem in increasing numbers of countries, so is HIV among people who inject drugs," she said.

"But similarly there is so much that we don't know and there is relatively little known in very important regions such as sub-Saharan Africa the Middle East and in some areas in Asia."