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The first reported case of needlestick-transmitted HIV infection led to increasing awareness and concern about the risks to health-care workers posed by sharps injuries (Anonymous, 1984).
WHO reports in the World Health Report 2002, that of the 35 million health-care workers, 2 million experience percutaneous exposure to infectious diseases each year. It further notes that 37.6% of Hepatitis B, 39% of Hepatitis C and 4.4% of HIV/AIDS in Health-Care Workers around the world are due to needlestick injuries (WHO, 2002), In addition to HBV, HCV and HIV, other pathogens can be transmitted to health-care workers by sharps injury, including those that cause tuberculosis, diphtheria, herpes, malaria, Ebola plague, and Epstein-Barr infection (Collins & Kennedy, 1987; Sepkowitz, 1996).
Needlestick occurs in several stages such as recapping, disposing of medical wests, movement of a patient, and other reasons like unattended needle before recapping. Among those reasons, recapping is responsible for 12, 15, 17.4, 18 and 32% of the needlestick and sharp injuries infections in United States of America (Mangione et al., 1991) , New Zealand (Lum et al., 1997), South Africa (Karstaedt & Pantanowitz, 2001), Nigeria (Adegboye et al., 1994) and Taiwan (Guo et al., 1999), respectively.
To overcome this problem, number of designs was put, the most important were: “Needleless or jet-injection” where the medication is injected under the skin without a needle, using the force of the liquid under pressure to pierce the skin. “Retractable needle”: the needle (usually fused to the syringe) is spring-loaded and retracts into the barrel of the syringe when the plunger is completely depressed after the injection is given. “Protective sheath” after giving an injection, the worker slides a plastic barrel over the needle and locks it in place. “Hinged re-cap”: after the injection, the worker, using the index finger, flips a hinged protective cap over the needle, which locks into place. This safety feature may be fused to the syringe or come separate and detachable from the syringe (ANA, 2002).
introduction
The new design of the syringe
A new design plastic disposal syringe, by adding a plastic cone into the top of standard cap, to prevent the needlestick of the used syringe (as shown in Fig.1 and 2). The cone increases the available area when recapping the syringe, which forces the needle-head to slip down into the plastic tube and stabilizes in its correct situation, otherwise it slips out of the cap and injures the hand, which lead to transmit the bloodborne diseases after injecting an infected person.
This design is characterized by low-cost and easy to use, along with maintaining the original standard design without any other alteration (except for the needle-cap); and the effectiveness in the prevention of health-care workers from needlestick by the contaminated needle. the current design increases the available area for the needle many times, which prevents the needlestick occurred usually because human eye cannot differentiate the edges of standard needle cap, because its opening is small, and the potential of incorrect recapping the needle after usage.
Other designs, which are illustrated in paragraph A (Former technical situation), required either changing the design of the standard injection totally (needleless injection, retractable needle, protective sheath, and fused hinged re-cap) or to assembling an addition piece in the case of the separate hinged re-cap, which need the will (and the time) among the user, besides it is more complicated and higher cost. Moreover, the precaution procedures recommended by World Health Organization, as “The One-Handed Needle Recapping Method” required perceive and will and the health-care workers cannot be forced to apply it.
As the new design of cap is built-in part, it do not need assembling, and thus it correct the fault occurred as a result of disability of eye to differentiate whither the needle end entered the cap, and lead it into correct place, protecting the hand from needlestick.
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