alt Hacker NewsHospital at centre of child HIV outbreak caught reusing syringes in Pakistan
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I was in middle school when we were taught that used syringes were one of the causes of HIV. Can't believe a hospital would do this!!!
US should rather sanction Pakistan than getting IMF loan to it.
There's obviously terrible procedures happening at this clinic, involving contamination, but that one video doesn't seem like the culprit. Notice he removes the needle, then injects medicine into a cannula tube, not flesh. He then re-attaches the needle, draws the second dose, and injects again. That was the problem. The narrator says he then used a brand new syringe for every child, but that initial procedure contaminated the vial. Cannula tubes are primed with saline, that's kind of a long gap for blood to travel to contaminate the vial. Yes he did it wrong, but I get why he thought it would be ok.
Does anyone have alternative archival sites? I want to switch away from archive.today because of the uncivil behavior [1] but can't find any other archival sites that can unpaywall websites.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-might-...
One way to think of infection control best practice with needles like this.
The cost of a new needle, syringe or new gloves is quite cheap.
The cost of an infection is high.
The cost of a HIV infection is life altering.
So, its clear that whoever did this thought that whatever small savings they obtained from not using a fresh syringe was more important to them than the high likelihood their patients would get infections, including HIV.
expect nothing less from a country that has the largest slave population in the world.
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This is common practice in much of developed world. Long ago, they used to have re-usable glass syringes that could be sterilized. Unfortunately, people switched to disposable syringes. The unit costs are...high in the US, unreasonable in developing countries.
It's not just this hospital, it's widespread ([1] report 38%)
[1] https://www.emro.who.int/emhj-volume-26-2020/volume-26-issue...