An outbreak of the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among patients injecting prescription medicine prompted health authorities in southern Indiana to sound the alarm on Wednesday over the dangers of unprotected sex and needle sharing.

Many of the cases in five Indiana counties are linked to patients intravenously treating themselves with the prescription drug opana, which experts said was more potent painkiller than oxycontin.

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In a statement, Health Commissioner Dr. Jerome Adams said due to the fact that drug abuse was the source of the outbreak, authorities were out to seek, get in touch with and examine people who may have been at risk. 

Adams added people in danger of HIV infection will be afforded services for substance abuse recovery and treatment.

Since mid-December last year, the State Department of Health of Indiana has recorded 26 cases of HIV infections, which lead to the deadly Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

So far, four other patients have been initially diagnosed with the infection of the virus.

A spokeswoman of the Health Department, Amy Reel, said the HIV cases had been recorded in Scott, Jackson, Washington and Clark counties, which lie north of Louisville in Kentucky and Perry County, about an hour west of Evansville.

Indiana is working with medical authorities and public health providers in the region to attempt containing the outbreak, according to the public statement.

Last week, an unconventional vaccination that apparently fully protects monkeys from the AIDS-causing human immuno-deficiency virus brings new hope to an HIV vaccine for humans, a team of American scientists says.

Vaccines usually teach the human immune system how to stave off an infection.

Instead, scientists at California's Scripps Research Institute changed the monkey DNA to provide their cells with HIV-repelling abilities.

The research leader, Professor Michael Farzan, said his team is nearer to universal HIV protection than any other, but members are still facing many challenges.

The biggest is safety in administering it to many people.