A decades-long push by British entrepreneur Marc Koska of SafePoint Trust to combat the infections and more than 1 million deaths caused by needle re-use has led to the World Health Organization introducing a mandate to adopt Koska’s K-1 syringe, which he designed in 1997. Koska made the announcement at TEDMED 2014 in Washington, D.C.
In a message to the audience, WHO Assistant Director General Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, confirmed in a video that the WHO mandate will be formally announced in Geneva October 30, in a meeting of syringe manufacturers. In the next three years, all health systems will be required to switch over to auto-disable syringes, according to a company statement.
In a video to draw attention to the problem, Koska set a secret camera up in a clinic. The audience watched in horror as a nurse uses a syringe to take blood from an HIV-AIDS patient only to use the same needle to take blood from a 1-year-old child. The needle gets used four times on four patients.
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
In Africa, about 20 million medical injections contaminated with blood from a patient with HIV are administered every year, according to the company statement.