Almost 40 people died from drug use in 2013 in Romania, most of them in Bucharest and the nearby Ilfov county, according to the 2014 national report on drugs from the National Antidrug Agency (ANA), cited by local Mediafax.

Last year, the National Institute of Forensic Medicine (INML) reported a total of 30 deaths caused directly by drugs, 28 of them in Bucharest. Forensic experts also reported nine cases in which death, even if it occurred from other different causes, was related to drug use.

In 2013, 1,054 injecting drug users contacted infectious diseases, according to ANA, a number similar to the one registered in 2012.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com