In the UK, drug use was estimated to be responsible for around 15% of AIDS cases in 1993, falling to around 7% in 1997. In Liverpool and Amsterdam, where injecting drug addicts are able to get clean needles on the state, HIV infection rates were as low as 8%. In Italy, where drug addicts are hounded and imprisoned, infection rates reached 70% in the early 1990s. Also in some areas of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and the USA, between 20-50% of injecting drug users were HIV positive.