Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
San Francisco Chronicle - Friday, October 30, 1998
The appalling fact is that Dr. Mogo is hardly alone in being confronted with such an agonizing dilemma. Daily, medical professionals around the world are faced with similar, perilous choices.
And inevitably, they throw the dice in favor of vaccinating against potential killers such as measles and mumps in the hope that the needles they are using are not contaminated.
As Chronicle staff writers Reynolds Holding and William Carlsen reported in the latest installments of their alarming "Deadly Needles" series, worldwide as many as 1.8 million people are infected each year by contaminated needles even though devices exist that prevent the life-risking reuse of hypodermic needles.
In India, more than a third of the coun try's 2.9 billion yearly injections are administered with syringes recycled from hospital waste bins and garbage dumps, according to one estimate. In Central Africa, vaccination workers continue using needles even when they run out of fuel for portable field sterilizers. In Cambodia, graft consumes more than half of the nation's health budget, leaving medical facilities with only a fraction of the syringes needed for injections.
Just as the California Legislature, Governor Wilson and federal officials have taken action to prevent dangerous unintended needle sticks in the United States, world health organizations, government leaders, medical professionals and needle manufacturers must -- with a sense of deadly urgency -- see that the needles used to treat disease in the rest of the world do not themselves cause disease.
The solution is known. Replace disposable needles with those that prevent reuse.
There is plenty of blame to go around for the delay in using safer needles that have been available for a decade. But most important now is not to point fingers but to prevent more needless deaths.
Manufacturers must make available in huge numbers needles that cannot be reused. World health officials must solicit and provide them. And governments must see that they are being used.
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