Lowering the burden of disease and overall healthcare cost through safe injection practice regime, says Mr Rajiv Nath
According to WHO, every year at least 16 billion injections are administered worldwide
Bengaluru:
Safe injection practice lowers the burden of disease and overall healthcare cost. HMD has been an active partner in global initiatives for moving towards a safer injection practice regime and has inculcated this as part of its CSR program.
Introduction and Identification of Problem:
Syringes should be life giver, not life taker. But sadly this has not really been the case as unsafe injections continue to be a major problem threatening patient's life, casting shadows over immunization programs and raising overall healthcare cost for both individuals as well as countries.
According to WHO, every year at least 16 billion injections are administered worldwide. The vast majority - around 90 percent - are given in curative care. Immunization accounts for around 5 percent of all injections while the remaining indications include transfusion of blood and blood products, intravenous administration of drugs and fluids and administration of injectable contraceptives.
Unsafe injections can result in the transmission of blood-borne pathogens from patient to patient (through reuse of syringes), patient to healthcare worker (through needle-stick injuries) and more rarely, health worker to patient. The community at large is also at risk when used injection equipment is not safely disposed of. Unsafe injection practices have also been the cause of outbreaks of viral hepatitis B and C and HIV in healthcare settings including in high income countries.
Unsafe injection practices are also associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Before safe injection campaign first began in year 2000, it was estimated that up to 1,60,000 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), 4.7 million hepatitis C and 16 million hepatitis B infections each year are attributable to unsafe injection practices. The problem was complex and fuelled by a mixture of socio-cultural, economic and structural factors.
