The Sindh Disposable Syringe Act: putting the act together

The World Health Organization (WHO) is concerned that conventional disposable syringes are being widely reused and that this practice has contributed to the spread of blood-borne infections, such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV.Research has shown that unless a physical barrier to syringe reuse is introduced, economic drivers and cultural resistance to waste lead to continued reuse in developing countries, regardless of training, advocacy and regulatory factors.1 One of the main means to address syringe reuse has been the introduction of syringes with reuse preventionfeatures (http://qdsyringe.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/safesyringes- for-injection-safety/). This includes the auto disable (AD) syringes in which the plunger gets locked after it is used once and certain types of syringes in which the plunger additionally breaks, preventing any possibility of reuse. AD syringes are routinely used in the immunization sector worldwide, and in many countries they are by law used in the curative sector.