Unsafe injections cause 390,000 premature deaths in China | Xinhua

[Ediacara]

Unsafe injections cause 390,000 premature deaths in China
2004-08-05 20:21:38

BEIJING, Aug. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- About 390,000 Chinese have died prematurely from unsafe injections, said a think tank of China's Ministry of Health here Thursday.

The Thinktank Health Research Center released the statistics at a seminar on unsafe injection that opened here Thursday.

The results show that AIDS and HBV (Hepatitis B Infection) caused by unsafe injections have caused 390,000 premature deaths and 6.89 million Disability Adjustment Life Year losses. The direct medical spending on unsafe injection has reached 142 million US dollars.

There are 3 billion injections in China annually, one fifth of the global total. In poor western regions and rural areas, it's a common practice of grassroots clinics to reuse disposable syringeswithout effective disinfection measures.

More at the Xinhua News Agency

[Robbien]

1. That many deaths a year and this is the first time

it gets in the news?

[wickerwoman]

2. It doesn't say yearly. It may be spread over 20 years. But still...

:wow:

When I had my medical they burned the tip off the end of the needle right in front of me and then threw it in a handy bio-hazard container.

Of course sanitation is a lot harder to come by in the west. Those poor sods make dirt-poor look like something to aspire to.

[Robbien]

3. They do not say it exactly, but the numbers work out

to be an annual number. The report says they do 3 billion injections annually and 30%-50% of them are to be considered unsafe. That comes to over a million unsafe injections a year. It is reasonable to expect one third of those unsafe injections would result in deaths.

Especially in the poorer regions.