Tuesday, 31 August 2004
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POST 00712E : ACCIDENTAL NEEDLESTICK Follow-up on Posts 00701E, 00706E and 00708E 31 August 2004 _____________________________________ Two more contributions were received on this topic. The first is from Anil Varshney (mailto:[email protected]) from India. The second is from William Dierick (mailto:[email protected]) from Belgium. _____________________________________ Dear All I am in total agreement with Amber Hogan. In fact sound training and repeated with warnings as well as displaying injection safety measures in posters at the site of use with visuals rather than text messages will go a long way at addressing the issue. Needle cutters are a must, but should be cheap enough to be bought in bulk by the service providers. And then these should be collected by biomedical waste collection system if it exists ( as in New Delhi India - where a private party collects the syringes, needles and other biomedical waste from hospitals and clinics every day and then disposes). Wearing gloves and eye glasses must be mandatory for all in place of work. However the issue relates to accidental injury that occurs when injection devices are thrown away and not properly disposed - where children play and/or garbage collectors handle them. Most common infections that I have seen is the local infection on hands and nails. A detailed study has not been done to see what are the diseases that these rag pickers suffer which will give true indication of the threat, may be one could also check their blood for HBV,HIV, HCV and other infections and related to rag picking period. Commonly such injuries are treated with TT injection, antibiotics. Rarely does HBV vaccination given - and since the vaccination is not available in public system for children above 1 year, the patient does not opt for it, being costly and not readily available. Moreover since the disease mentioned do not show up immediately they are far less related to the needle stick injury. One should give HBV vaccines to all such exposed persons since they run high risk collecting garbage. Regards Dr. Anil Varshney ---------------------------------- I am reading this article with interest and appreciate the response of our industry colleague. I do not have opposing opinions on what Amber Hogan is stating on prevention of the risks associated to sharps injuries (not only needlesticks), but I feel that we need to add and emphasize also the importance and necessity of giving training (and refreshers) to health care workers on safe working practices, use and disposal. Different studies have shown that education plays a vitally important role. Also, preventive vaccination (HBV) of all workers should be part of the combined preventive measures. It is the combination of all those measures (Substitution, Engineering controls, Safe Working Practices and Training) that will give the maximum result on the elimination of the risks of sharps injuries. Kind regards, William Dierick Business Development Manager Medical Products - Europe, Terumo Europe N.V. Leuven, Belgium ______________________________________________________________________________ Visit the TECHNET21 Website at http://www.technet21.org You will find instructions to subscribe, a direct access to archives, links to reference documents and other features. ______________________________________________________________________________ To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message to : mailto:[email protected] Leave the subject area BLANK In the message body, write unsubscribe TECHNET21E ______________________________________________________________________________ The World Health Organization and UNICEF support TechNet21. The TechNet21 e-Forum is a communication/information tool for generation of ideas on how to improve immunization services. It is moderated by Claude Letarte and is hosted in cooperation with the Centre de coopération internationale en santé et développement, Québec, Canada (http://www.ccisd.org) ______________________________________________________________________________
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