|
Vaccine Experts at GAVI Meeting in India Announce Progress in Injection Safety; More than one Billion Auto-Disable Syringes Distributed Worldwide
In Collaboration with WHO, UNICEF, Seattle-based PATH and GAVI Help Improve Safety of Injections in Developing Nations
7 December 2005 - NEW DELHI — At an
international vaccine meeting in New Delhi today, the GAVI Alliance
(the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization), announced that the
Alliance and its partners have distributed 1.214 billion single-use,
auto-disable (AD) syringes, protecting millions of children in
developing countries from blood-borne pathogens that might otherwise be
transmitted through sloppy injection practices.
“The decision to fund auto-disable syringes, inspired
and supported by UNICEF, is an important part of GAVI’s mission to
expand access to vaccines for the world’s poorest children,” said
Julian Lob-Levyt, MD, Executive Secretary for GAVI. “Virtually every
child immunized in the world is safer today as a result of UNICEF’s
work in procuring AD syringes and the commitment of national leaders to
protect their children from diseases such as hepatitis or HIV, which
can be transmitted via dirty needles.”
Experts meeting this week at the 3rd GAVI Partners’
Meeting in New Delhi cited India’s recent decision to adopt safe
injection practices nationally, including immunization with AD
syringes, as a model solution--one that could help accelerate the
adoption of safe injection practices in other countries as well. PATH,
an international nongovernmental organization, developed one of the
first AD syringes. This design and others are now produced by private
manufacturers in both developing and industrialized nations.
Immunization of children accounts for only 10 percent
of 16 billion injections given worldwide every year, but efforts to
improve injection safety in childhood immunization programs are
expected to have a broader impact because of vaccination's prominent
place in public health policy. The World Health Organization (WHO)
estimates that more than 17 percent of all injections are administered
with re-used, un-sterilized injection equipment, a practice the agency
blames for “a silent epidemic“ of disease—20 million hepatitis B
infections, 2 million hepatitis C infections, and 250,000 infections
with HIV annually.
Last month in the WHO Weekly Epidemiological Record,
an expert committee reported that AD syringes are now used for routine
immunizations in 62 percent of non-industrialized countries—up from 42
percent in 2001— and noted that GAVI support has played a major role in
this progress. The Safe Injection Global Network (SIGN), an
international coalition of stakeholders has also been instrumental in
addressing the need for safe and appropriate use of injections
throughout the world.
India has one of the world’s largest immunization
programs in a country where vaccine-preventable illness still poses a
major public health threat. Earlier this year, the World Bank reported
that up to 70 percent of India’s 4 billion injections given each year
for curative or prevention purposes were either incorrectly
administered or given with improperly sterilized needles. Indian health
officials have responded with a pledge to use AD syringes for all
routine immunizations.
The Indian Government made its decision to expand use
of the AD syringe after observing a dramatic reduction in
injection-related abscesses in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh (AP),
where the new syringes were first introduced as part of a model
initiative between Seattle-based PATH and the AP government. A
co-founder of GAVI, PATH negotiated an agreement with Indian
manufacturers that lowered the cost of AD syringes, making the syringes
available for widespread use.
The move to encourage use of the AD syringes is part of
a trend to speed transfer of new technologies to the field in order to
promote not just injection safety at the point of vaccination, but the
safe disposal of “sharps waste” post-immunization as well. Among the
innovations PATH has introduced in several countries are “needle
cutter” devices that remove and break needles, reducing the risk of
needle pricks to the health provider and eliminating improper disposal
of the needles in residential areas. Perhaps most important, needle
cutters eliminate the dangerous practice of selling used syringes for
re-use, an activity that has been fairly common in India’s poorer
communities.
“We have been working with manufacturers to reduce the
price of needle remover devices and to make them more widely
available,” said Dr. Raj Kumar, director of PATH’s AP program, based in
Hyderabad. “Our staff is also developing specifications for needle
removers as part of the World Health Organization’s waste management
working group for performance, quality, and safety system.”
By the end of 2005, GAVI will have disbursed US$115
million to support injection safety in some of the world’s poorest
countries. GAVI Executive Secretary Julian Lob-Levyt noted that 15
countries whose support ended in 2004 have found resources to continue
to fund safety measures.
“We face many challenges in our efforts to encourage
injection safety worldwide,” Lob-Levyt said. “But it’s important that
GAVI support is serving as a catalyst in a number of countries where
national governments have continued to support the purchase of AD
syringes, even after exhausting their GAVI funds.”
# # #
The GAVI Alliance (Global Alliance for Vaccines and
Immunization) was launched in 2000 to increase immunization rates and
reverse widening global disparities in access to vaccines. Governments
in industrialized and developing countries, UNICEF, WHO, the World
Bank, non-governmental organizations, foundations, vaccine
manufacturers, and public health and research institutions work
together as partners in the Alliance, to achieve common immunization
goals, in the recognition that only through a strong and united effort
can much higher levels of support for global immunization be generated.
Funds channeled through GAVI’s financing arm, The GAVI Fund, are used
to help strengthen health and immunization services, accelerate access
to selected vaccines and new vaccine technologies - especially vaccines
that are new or under-used, and improve injection safety. In addition
to substantial funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
The Vaccine Fund has been financed by 11 governments to date, as well
as the European Union and private contributors.
PATH
is an international, nonprofit organization that creates sustainable,
culturally relevant solutions that enable communities worldwide to
break longstanding cycles of poor health. More information on PATH’s
vaccine initiatives is available by contacting Laura Cooley, tel: +1
206 285 3500; email:
lcooley@path.org .
|