Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Thursday November 6, 2003
Dr Yvan Hutin and his colleagues at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva said one in three injections given in developing countries was dangerous.
"In most developing countries injections are considerably overused to give medication and most of these injections are unsafe and become a major vector of hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV," Hutin said in an interview.
Re-use of needles was most common in south Asia, the Middle East and the western Pacific, according to research by Hutin's team reported in the British Medical Journal.
The researchers said people in developing countries were receiving too many injections for illnesses that could be treated with oral medication or no drugs at all.
Needles are often reused and not sterilized properly.
They called for changes in medical practices and better safety measures to reduce the use of dirty needles that can transmit infections.
"There should be enough syringes and needles made available in each clinic in the world. Dirty syringes and needles that have been used to give injections should be destroyed so they cannot be used again," Hutin added.
The WHO estimates that about 16 billion injections are given in developing and transitional countries each year and as many as 70 percent are unnecessary. Nearly two percent of all new HIV cases, or 96,000 people, are infected through unsafe injections, according to the WHO.
Dirty needles are also the most common cause of infection of hepatitis C, a potentially deadly liver disease, and account for 33 percent of new hepatitis B cases, another serious illness.
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