Despite decades of investigation into the behavioral drivers of HIV incidence, accurately predicting who is at the highest risk of becoming infected with HIV remains challenging. Yet, this information is critical for preventing outbreaks and tailoring interventions. These tools are even more critical at the final stages of disease control, elimination, or eradication programs which require disproportionately more effort and resources than in preceding stages to identify those at risk, especially in a setting of dwindling resources and emerging pandemics. As we rapidly approach the ambitious 2030 targets, the same will be true of HIV, even more so among hard-to-reach populations such as PWID, and we need early warning systems to guide a more targeted public health response We previously demonstrated that PWID accumulate blood-borne nonpathogenic viruses in the plasma before hepatitis C virus infection. We also have early data showing that sequences of these nonpathogenic viruses reveal epidemiologic links. This study builds on these findings to explore whether the plasma virome in PWID can be further used as a bioindicator of HIV risk and whether it can be leveraged to interrupt HIV outbreaks before they occur. By using routinely collected samples, this work could lead to more robust molecular surveillance methods that can guide public health officials in targeting interventions to prevent HIV outbreaks and focus limited resources for the greatest impact.