WHO Underplays HIV/AIDS Needles Threat, Campaigner Says

NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) – The World Health Organization is seriously underestimating the contribution of needle re-use to HIV/AIDS in Africa, a campaigner told a conference on the epidemic Tuesday.

NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) – The World Health Organization is seriously underestimating the contribution of needle re-use to HIV/AIDS in Africa, a campaigner told a conference on the epidemic Tuesday.WHO focused on the role of sexual transmission of the disease in Africa to the point of excluding virtually other causes, said Lillian Salerno, director of the International Association of Safe Needle Technology (IASIT).By attributing only 2.5 percent of new AIDS cases to needle re-use, WHO officials were behaving a bit like the ostriches in Nairobi National Park — burying their heads in the sand and ignoring the danger.”This is not only misleading, it is also dangerous,” she told the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA), in the Kenyan capital.”We cannot solve this terrible healthcare crisis until we recognize that it exists.”She said research by her Geneva-based NGO showed needle re-use and other unsafe medical practices could account for as much as 30 percent of new AIDS cases.Salerno praised the U.S. Senate for considering funding a clean needle program for Africa, but said the money was likely to be spent on “auto disable” syringes.Such syringes, in which the plunger becomes locked after a single use, protect patients because they cannot be re-used, Salerno told the conference in Nairobi.But doctors and nurses remained at risk of exposure to infection from a contaminated needle, she said.U.S. health workers are protected under a 2000 law prescribing “safety engineered” needles, in which a needle retracts into a syringe after a single use, Salerno said.”We believe African health care workers, who risk their lives every day for their patients, deserve the same protection,” she said.Some 28.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV/AIDS out of an adult population of 291 million, and 15 million have died.(source: Reuters, Tue September 23, 2003 12:48 PM ET)