A flood of rumors about girls who have been drugged with syringes and infected with HIV in the city of Oslo is being widely spread. Now both the night club Ivy and Hiv Norge reject the HIV claims.
The messages take various forms and have been massively shared on social media in recent days. A number of people have also contacted VG about the rumours.
«NBNB!!! There have been many cases of stabbings with rape-doping at IVY (solli) in the autumn and a few days before Christmas there were 3 young girls who got HIV through a syringe with HIV-infected blood (…) this is from reliable sources,” it says in one of the messages being sent around.
The allegations of HIV infection are linked to two different nightclubs.
Head of Department Anne Maagaard at the Department of Infectious Diseases at Oslo University Hospital says that this is unknown to them:
– We have not received any inquiries about this and have not detected HIV infection in anyone who has stated that they may have been infected in this way, she writes in an e-mail to VG.
However, she will neither confirm nor deny whether the rumors are true.
– If anyone suspects that they may have been infected, either through unprotected sex or through the use of unclean syringes, they can receive so-called post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), i.e. preventive HIV treatment, so that infection does not occur.
– Not aware of anything like that having happened
The chance that someone will be infected with HIV through this method is zero, according to Secretary General Anne-Karin Kolstad in Hiv Norway.
– This would have been a world sensation if it were true. This is very likely just someone trying to make something out of something that doesn’t exist, she says.
– We are not aware of anything like that having happened here. We are also not aware that it is possible to be infected in this way, says Kolstad to VG about the rumours.
She points out that injecting drug users were infected in this way in the 80s when they shared syringes, but that it takes a lot and that even health personnel who treated HIV patients and injected themselves did not become infected.
Kolstad in Hiv Norway says that Norway has the HIV epidemic under control, and that there is hardly a person who goes around with the infection without knowing about it. Those who are infected are therefore medicated and cannot infect anyone, she explains.
– Medicines today are so good that the virus can no longer be detected in the blood. This is nothing to worry about at all. The alarm would have gone off in Norway if this was true, she explains.
Reporting rumours
General manager Eirik Magerøy at the Ivy pub in Oslo says on Tuesday to VG that they have spoken to the police and will report the spread of rumours. Ivy is one of the pubs that is repeated in the rumors that are pending.
– We had no cases of needlesticks at our place just before Christmas, and have not been contacted by either the police or health authorities. We would have been contacted immediately if there was any hold on this, says Magerøy to VG.
The pub itself became aware of the flood of rumors on Tuesday morning, when guests alerted them with a screenshot of the pending Snapchat message. He thinks it is sad that HIV disease is now used in such a context.
– It exploded at 12-13. This kind of rumor-mongering primarily creates great uncertainty and anxiety among guests, who have not been uncritically influenced by this, he says.
– We have confidence in the police, and want to report it to confirm and clarify 100 per cent that there is nothing wrong with this.
– Never heard of these claims
The other nightclub that is repeated in the rumours, Skaugum on Solli plass, is also not familiar with what is alleged before the rumors started to spread.
– I only became aware of this yesterday when I was sent these screenshots. I have never heard of these claims before, says managing director Anders Westermark Messel to VG.
– Have people been drugged with a syringe at your place?
– Doping by injection has not happened with us that we have heard of, says Messel further.
He is now talking to people to investigate the rumors further.
– It is difficult to deal with rumors until you know something more concrete, he says.
The ambulance service: Brings in people who suspect doping on a weekly basis
It is common for people to suspect that they are being drugged in the city at the general emergency service in Oslo. They receive weekly people who suspect that they have been drugged in various ways in the city, says doctor Odd Martin Vallersnes to VG.
They do not have figures for how often narcotic substances are then detected.
– We can take tests to show whether you have ingested various substances. As a rule, we do not find anything other than alcohol in the samples, but sometimes we find benzodiazepine (sedating drug), and rarely GHB, explains the doctor.
He says that GHB is difficult to detect because it is quickly excreted from the body.
– It is very rare that those who suspect that they have been drugged, have been drugged with a syringe, it usually happens through drink. We have not noticed any increase in inquiries about doping recently.
Advice if you suspect you have been drugged
Doctor Vallersnes at the general emergency service has several pieces of advice if you suspect that you have been drugged in the city:
- Stay with people you trust and who can help you to the emergency room or help call an ambulance, or possibly help you home and look after you there if it feels safe.
- If you have been drugged down, you will often feel much more under the influence of drugs than you can explain by what you yourself have consumed from drugs. To try to avoid this, it’s a good idea to stick with people you trust.
- Watch your drink/glass or have someone you trust watch.
Advise common sense
One of the pending messages also says “Stay away from Ivy”.
– We can only wonder about the motivation for that. I don’t want to speculate on that, says managing director Magerøy.
Magerøy has operated in the night life industry since 2002. Cases of doping by injection have never been confirmed at his nightclub, he says, but the police investigated it with them after unconfirmed information that was pending about this last autumn.
– In general, common sense applies. Don’t accept drinks from people you don’t know, says Magerøy.
Reported doping with a needle
VG wrote about cases of doping by syringe in the city of Oslo in November 2021 – when two women said they had been stabbed with a needle on the city in Oslo. The conditions were reported.
Even now, the Oslo police say that this is a phenomenon where they sporadically receive reports.
– The police are aware of the phenomenon and occasionally receive reports, but are not aware that it is on a large scale. We encourage people to quickly contact health personnel, for example at the emergency room for examination, in cases where they suspect they have involuntarily ingested unknown substances, writes communications adviser Kamilla Karlsholmen Hauge in the police in an e-mail to VG.
Extracting figures, however, is difficult, because the conditions are entered under different statistical groups depending on the reports that come in, she explains.
The police encourage you to make a report if you are exposed to something criminal.
– It is a criminal offense to secretly stab another person with a needle or the like.
When asked specifically about the HIV rumours, the police refer to the emergency room and Oslo University Hospital. To investigate whether this specific rumor has been reported, they need more details, says Hauge.
The police in Oslo have not yet answered VG’s questions about the HIV claims and the rumors about doping by injection recently.
