Injection infections to be stemmed
By Li Dapeng (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-04-20 22:51

China is tightening up legislation and law enforcement to prevent infections and injuries from unsafe injections, which has become a global health concern, sources with the Ministry of Health said Tuesday.

According to Guo Yanhong, a division chief of the ministry, the Chinese Government has promulgated several relevant polices and statutes in the past few years, and more detailed rules will be announced soon.

As an increasing number of blood-borne diseases, such as hepatitis B and C and HIV/AIDS, are being spread throughout the world due to the sharing of needles, safe injection has become a hot public health topic globally.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 10 per cent of the world's 12 billion injections each year are expanded programme on immunization (EPI) injections.

The remainder are medical injections. Unfortunately, 30 per cent of EPI injections and at least 50 per cent of medical injections are unsafe.

The situation is even worse in developing countries.

Children receive 5.5 billion injections annually and are the first to be affected by unsafe practices.

The common unsafe injection practice includes the re-use of syringes, bad sterilization and the inadequate disposal of medical waste.

Recognizing the impact unsafe injections are having around the globe,

governments and health groups are taking more precautions.

"It is the responsibility of all health workers, their employers, national governments and the public to ensure the safe and appropriate use of injections," said Kong Wen, an official from the China Office of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), during the Beijing meeting.

To achieve this goal, the China Alliance for Safe Injection was established two years ago.

In 1999, the WHO founded the Safe Injection Global Network at its headquarters in Geneva. One of the organization's main objectives is to promote new technologies that minimize the risks associated with injections.

The WHO and UNICEF were pushing for auto-disposal (AD) syringes, which can only be used once, to be used for all EPI injections by the end of last year.

But there is still a long way to go before the AD syringes are used for both EPI and medical injections.

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