UAE joins WHO to promote use of safe syringes

Abu Dhabi, June 3, 2012 (WAM) - Some six million auto-disabled syringes (ADSs) or one-time use syringes from the UAE that would help mitigate the spread of blood-borne communicable diseases, shall be used in two pilot studies to be conducted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in two states. The states have been selected as the first beneficiaries of the country’s initiative to support the promotion of the use of safe syringes worldwide. The beneficiary-countries of the UAE’s contribution to the WHO’s “Safe Injection Global Network-SIGN,” under the patronage of the wife of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Prime Minister and Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, the chairperson of the Dubai International Humanitarian City (DIHC), are Nepal and Tanzania. WHO senior environmental health adviser Terrence Thompson mentioned about the pilot studies in his speech, when the UAE Ministry of Health (MoH) acknowledged on Thursday at the brief ceremonies in Grand Hyatt-Dubai the over 20 government organisations as well as public and private companies in the emirate of Abu Dhabi and Sharjah which contributed to the initiative. MoH Medical and Licensing Assistant Undersecretary Dr Amin Hussein Al Amiri, who had expressed hope that more countries would be helped by the UAE, said the ADSs had been delivered to Nepal and Tanzania through the manpower and services provided by the donors. The donors gathered by the lead agency, Sharjah Blood Transfusion and Research Centre which is the main link of the WHO to the Middle East, had contributed a total of Dhs1,247,803 to the initiative. Responding to an e-mail interview, Thompson, who is based in Nepal, expressed his gratitude to the UAE government for the storage of the six million ADSs at the DIHC and in “(creating) a fund to buy safety-engineered syringes which prevent the re-use on patients and to offer them to needy countries which cannot afford them.” He said WHO had chosen Nepal and Tanzania as the first country-beneficiaries because the respective health ministries of these countries have the zeal and the commitment “to address the unsafe injection practices and to prevent the transmission of blood-borne viruses through the (ADSs).” “Unsafe injection practices have been documented by the injection safety assessments carried by the WHO in these two countries,” he also said. In their respective speeches, Amiri and Thompson claimed that the global unsafe and repeated use of syringes have resulted in the prevalence of HIV-Aids as well as Hepatitis B and C among other diseases. Thompson said 1.3 million deaths occur worldwide each year because of the procedure. He cited a WHO study conducted in the western region of Nepal which revealed that “70 per cent of the clinical staff and 63 per cent of non-clinical health workers had experienced needle stick injury, putting them at risk for infection by serious and potentially life-threatening diseases.” Thompson and WHO-SIGN Injection Safety Programme medical officer in-charge Dr Selma Khamassi identified Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Indonesia as the other countries which immediately need ADSs. Thompson, who explained that ADSs automatically locks upon use, pointed out that the pilot studies to be conducted in Nepal and Tanzania “aims at demonstrating a proper training on injection safety and (used syringes) waste management to all injection providers but also to supplying hospitals with the right equipment that will definitely ensure the safety of all injections in the country. “The results of the project will be used to advocate the replacement of the regular single use syringes to the Reuse Prevention for all therapeutic injections which represent 18.5 billion injections worldwide,” he added. Geneva-based Khamassi said ADSs for immunisation purposes had been invented in the mid-1990s. A few years later, WHO and the United Nations International Children’s Educational Fund issued a joint policy that all countries must use these by 2003. However, even developed countries where “safety engineered syringes are widely available,” have not fully implemented it “because the re-use of syringes on several patients have not been documented until recently,” Khamassi said. She said it was traced that outbreaks of a viral Hepatitis C in a New York clinic in 2007 and another communicable disease in a Nevada clinic in 2008 were due to the “contamination of multi-dose drug vials because nurses and doctors changed the needle but kept as well as used the same syringe to withdraw medication doses and inject on several patients.” Both WHO officials said there is the extensive need to promote the use of ADSs because as of now, the lack of the awareness of the consequences of unsafe injection practices which is basically the re-use of syringes on several patients is still overwhelming. Nepal Ambassador Dhananjay Jha and adviser to the Tanzania ambassador Muhaima Mpugsi thanked the UAE government for spearheading the initiative. Mpugsi added the ADSs delivered to his country would be a step forward towards a healthy and progressive nation. – The Gulf Today