India plans to make a 100% transition from disposable to reuse prevention syringes by 2020

  • Published | 21 September 2018
India takes strong decision towards replacement of the currently prevalent disposable injections with reuse prevention (RUP) syringes by the year 2020
India: As per the targets from National Viral Hepatitis Control Programme, Indian health ministry has decided to switch 100% usage of engineered safety devices in order to stop the usage of disposable syringes that causes infection. The problem of health and hygiene and rise in number of chronic decisions, can be taken care of by these steps, to certain extent, in the upcoming years.  In the year 2002-03, Indian government conducted a survey on the usage of injections. The survey revealed that two-third of the syringes used in India was unsafe. Further, it was explained by the healthcare experts that proportion of unsafe injections could be controlled by the adoption of auto-disable syringes. In line of this, Indian Health ministry has decided “to achieve 100% usage of safety-engineered syringes to control the injection related infections. Furthermore, Dr Lahariya, a Healthcare expert said that “Use of unsafe syringes is a major risk factor for hepatitis B and C. The switch from so-called disposable syringes will help in bringing down prevalence of hepatitis B and C by 30-35%." Thus, for a country like India, it is crucial to adopt such changes, given the fact that nearly 1.34 crore Indians suffer with hepatitis-C infection and the same number of people also carry hepatitis B.  According to the industry analysis of BlueWeave Consulting, the average per capita usage of syringes in a year is around 2.9 in India. This leads to use of 350 - 400 crore injections in the country. These syringes have the potential to carry diseases like HIV and Hepatitis, considering 50-60% of the injections used are unsafe. In light of this scenario, investment in prevention of viral hepatitis by promotion of safety engineered syringes should be the top most priority for public interest that can also save the amount on treatment and rehabilitation. Moreover, the use of unsafe syringes was associated with transmission of HIV, beside carrying the threat of viral hepatitis. As per WHO, 33,877 persons contracted HIV because of unsafe injections across the world every year. The states like Punjab and Andhra Pradesh has already adopted Reusable safety syringes and discarded the use disposable syringes altogether. Moreover, states like Uttar Pradesh is next in line to switch to the safety syringes to fulfill the target of Indian Health Ministry. The decision of Indian government clearly hints towards the increase in number of Chronic diseases and concern of the countries to cure the same, by coming up with the ways of prevention. Thus, the 100% usage of safety syringes will potentially act as a catalyst to serve the purpose of WHO, which is expected to invest more and more on the healthcare facility industry across the world, to address the healthcare concerns.