OBJECTIVETo measure related cost, effectiveness and benefit of needle and syringe exchange (NSP) in two provinces of Southwest China.

METHODSBetween September 2012 and February 2013, program files and questionnaires were used to collect the information about cost, effectiveness and benefit of NSP during three program years (July 2009 to June 2010, July 2010 to June 2011, July 2011 to June 2012 ) in 31 counties of two provinces of Southwest China. Unit cost indicators including cost of providing per syringe and cost of covering per IDU, number of new HIV infections avoided by providing needle and syringe exchange were used to evaluate the effectiveness of NSP, and the benefit indicators included the fees for ART, hospitalization cost and follow up of new HIV infection avoided by NSP. NEAR model was used to calculate the cases averted by NSP. Chi-square test was used to analyze the different percentage of allocation areas between two provinces.

RESULTSBetween July 2009 and June 2012, 25 374 041 yuan were totally used for NSP. In province A, the top investment area was management (1 848 485 yuan) while it was comprehensive intervention (5 452 355 yuan) in province B. The cost of providing per syringe was 3.67 yuan, and it decreased from 6.96 to 4.01 in province A and decreased from 3.38 to 2.17 in province B with the increasing needles distributed. The cost of covering per IDU was 712.71 yuan and the unit cost decreased from 882.85 to 574.95 in province A and decreased from 760.48 to 625.07 in province B with the growing number of IDUs intervened. A total of 1 307 new HIV infection were avoided by providing NSP, so 19 413.96 yuan would be used to avoid per IDU infecting HIV. A total of 367 507 488 yuan of HIV/AIDS related expenditure were avoided by NSP and the cost benefit ratio was 14.48.

CONCLUSIONNSP has a good cost-benefit ratio and should be promoted.