Summary-Assessment of Injection Practices in India -An IPEN Study, 2002-03.

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Assessment of Injection Practices in India – An IPEN Study 2002-2003

1. Magnitude of injections

According to Assessment of Injection Practices in India (AIPI) conducted by the

IndiaCLEN Program Evaluation Network (IPEN), nearly 300 crore injections are

given in India annually.

2. Safety of injections

Nearly 2/3rd (63%) of all injections administered in India were found to be

unsafe. This unsafety arises from a combination of factors like:

· use of inadequately sterilized injection equipment ( 90.8%),

· reuse of disposable syringes/needles (53.3%) and,

· improper technique of giving injections ( 53.1%).

These unsafe techniques increases the risk of infection/abscess formation/local

reaction to the recipients and more dangerously carry the risk of transmitting

various blood borne diseases like Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, HIV etc.

3. Injection related waste and its disposal

According to AIPI report in India , 74.6% of all injections were given using

plastic syringes. The huge amount of injections further lead to the problem of

disposal of injection related waste materials

· an enormous amount of infectious and environmentally dangerous waste is

generated, (in Delhi alone 65 tonnes of injection related waste is generated

annually)

· in India , health facility level and terminal level injection waste disposal

was satisfactory in only 61% and 45% of health facilities respectively at the

national level (AIPI study)

4.Rational use of injections

The burden of injections is a matter of concern worldwide especially when most

of them are not essential. AIPI study revealed that:

most of the injections (83%) in India are for curative purposes

almost one out of every two patients (48.1%) attending outpatient clinics

receives injections

Rukshana Zaman

IPEN

e-mail: <rukshana@...>