Proper medical waste management to prevent HIV
My first impression of Sobuj was made by his helpless look, a severely ill 18-year old boy, weighing just over 20 kg. He was scared but willing to get treated. For the last two years he had been suffering from recurrent respiratory tract infections, oral infections, low grade fever with productive cough, stomachache, running nose and severe diarrhoea. He was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS that was transmitted through contaminated needle.
IDUs (injection drug users) like Sobuj are one of the main routes of HIV transmission in Bangladesh. The latest round of the serological surveillance (sixth round) conducted between October 2004 through 2005, recorded 4.9 per cent of injection drug users to be HIV positive in Dhaka.
Many hospitals cannot maintain proper sterilisation and they do not dispose of hospital wastes properly, which increases the chance of the spread of infectious diseases like HIV. Dental and surgical precautions can also limit the spread of HIV infection by proper sterilisation of surgical instruments.
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