Concerned by the unsafe injection practices across the country, healthcare experts have urged the centre to adopt compulsory use of auto disable (AD) syringes for all kinds of injections. This demand comes in the wake of raising incidence of careless injection practices that have led to outbreaks of viral hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV in healthcare settings.

Experts pointed out that the practice of unsafe injections has been quite prevalent in the rural areas, which is home to over 65 per cent of our population. In fact, studies reveal that around 65 per cent of syringes used in the country are not disposed or sterilised, and often reused.

Rajiv Nath, project head of Safe Point, a CSR initiative of Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices (HMD) pointed out that in spite of all this the true extent of the practice of unsafe injections has neither been fully documented nor studied across states, mainly due to resource constraints and lesser appreciation of the problem by various governments.

“Sadly, all these loopholes point to the grim fact that there is a rampant practice of unsafe injections widely prevalent in the country. Government has been aware of the problem but has also been slow to mandate the use of safe injection practice, which in practice means compulsory use of AD syringes for all kinds of injections,” he said.

He further added that it was only in July 2014, with  immense pressure from the stakeholders that the health ministry had launched a ‘handbook of guidelines for safe injection practices’ to promote awareness about the benefits and use of AD syringes. So important was the same that subsequently, the ministry of health through its national health resource centre conducted a health technology assessment (HTA) which substantiated the need to use auto disable syringes for curative and immunisation injections as appropriate technology to prevent noscomial infections, informed Nath.

“However, the implementation of government’s advisory for use of AD syringes for therapeutic injections has been half hearted in India despite periodic reminders. We seriously hope that with new advocacy campaign, there will be increased awareness for more responsible health practices which also brings down overall health spending and average days of stay at health centers. The surest way to protect against unsafe injections is to use injection devices that have been engineered so they cannot be re-used and does not lead to accidental needle stick injuries among health workers” he stressed.

Substantial efforts to address unsafe injection practices have been made by WHO in collaboration with the Safe Injection Global Network (SIGN) and UNICEF and other key international health players. Interestingly, HMD is the only Indian coalition partner of SIGN acting as an active campaigner for years for safe health practices in the interest of both patient as well as health workers.