Nurses can play an important role in helping people with HIV who inject substances engage in health care. Interventions include: 

• Establishing trust through non-judgmental approaches, non-stigmatising language, and practices 
• Supporting and educating them in harm reduction (45, 46) i.e. safe injecting techniques, access to clean injecting equipment and safe disposal of injecting equipment. This can help prevent complications that may arise from injecting as well as transmission of blood-borne viruses (46). 
• Supporting and referring to services based on peer-led models (47). 
• Providing care in supervised injecting rooms, providing a safe environment and opportunities for education, harm reduction, health promotion, and referral (48,49). 
• Ensuring access to prevention, testing and treatment 
• Facilitating adherence to antiretroviral therapy with the subsequent reduction of community viral load and reduction of the risk of HIV transmission, as well as preventing complications of untreated HIV infection 
• Avoiding punitive approaches to substance use, including discriminatory institutional policies or behaviours towards people who use substances (50, 51).