Hi Gang,
Series of articles in the SF Chronicle on changing market for syringes, good read;
Excerpt for private use only:
For decades, researchers warned that
contaminated syringes could transmit deadly viruses
with cruel efficiency. But efforts to defuse the crisis were failed, and today, it has become
an insidious global epidemic, destroying millions
of lives every year.
(First Of Three Parts)
CONFERENCE ROOM A
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION,
GENEVA
Dr. Ciro de Quadros, chief of the campaign that
eradicated polio from the Western Hemisphere,
could not believe the numbers. When the esteemed
Brazilian and other world health leaders arrived in
Switzerland last spring, they expected to discuss
the progress of the global vaccination program --
the most successful public health campaign in
history.
Instead, they got a medical time bomb.
In de Quadros' hand was a chilling internal report:
10 million people a year were contracting lethal
diseases such as hepatitis and AIDS through the
reuse of contaminated syringes.
De Quadros rose to his feet and implored his
colleagues to keep the findings confidential -- at
least until the numbers could be reviewed once
more.
'These figures are so incredible,' he said, 'that if
they are released, they will make the front pages of
newspapers around the world.'
But an earlier internal WHO study had revealed an
even more alarming figure: Every year as many as
1.8 million people infected by contaminated
syringes, mostly children, would die -- about one
every 20 seconds.
Medical researchers had warned for decades that
hypodermic needles could be deadly. But the
WHO reports made it painfully clear that world
health officials had an international medical crisis
on their hands -- and urgent action was needed.
''We want to avoid creating a panic,'' said WHO's
Michel Zaffran, who helped prepare the
still-unreleased infection numbers. ''But maybe
there is a need to create that panic to solve this
problem.''
This is a story, based on hundreds of interviews
and thousands of documents, about a vast, virtually
invisible epidemic, a crisis that could have been
defused more than a decade ago.
It is about soaring disease rates in Egypt and
plunging life expectancies in Brazil; children
combing garbage dumps for syringes to sell in
Kenya and India; and ignorance, poverty and
corruption driving medical workers in Cambodia
and Russia to reuse needles dozens -- sometimes
hundreds -- of times.
It is about a promising generation of nonreusable
syringes that got lost in a multibillion-dollar
corporate battle over the global syringe market.
COPYWRITE:SF Chronicle
sfgate.com
best, art |
