The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that smart syringes that break after one use should be used for injections by 2020.
Reusing syringes leads to more than two million people being infected with diseases including HIV and hepatitis each year.
The new needles are more expensive, but the WHO says the switch would be cheaper than treating the diseases.
More than 16 billion injections are administered annually.
Normal syringes can be used again and again.
The smart ones prevent the plunger being pulled back after an injection or retract the needle so it cannot be used again.
This is also a problem in rich Western countries.
An outbreak of hepatitis C in Nevada was traced back to a doctor who used the same syringe to give anaesthetic to multiple patients.
Standard syringes cost between 2 cents and 4 cents. The smart syringes cost between 4 and 6 cents.
The WHO describes it as a “small increase”. However, the tiny difference in the price of one needle becomes huge when it is scaled up to 16 billion injections.
The health agency is also calling for sheathed needles that prevent doctors accidentally pricking their fingers.
This has happened many times during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
They would treble the cost of the syringes and the WHO says these would have to be introduced “progressively”.
The WHO is calling on industry to expand production and find ways of reducing the cost of the safer needles.
But the measure will not be the end of the typical syringe.
They will be needed for needle exchange programs for drug users as well as in some treatments in which multiple medicines are mixed in the syringe before being injected.
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Regularly eating fast food can damage your liver in ways that are surprisingly similar to hepatitis, a new study shows.
The results were revealed on the television program, The Doctors, where it was found that even just a month of eating fast food can cause significant changes to your liver.
French fries in particular were dangerous because of the extra ingredients added.
“We know that they are adding salt, and cooking it in fat, but they’re also putting sugar on them too. Why sugar? Because it helps get them golden crispy,” said Dr. Drew Ordon, who appears on the show and is the author of the book Better in 7.
Foods like fried chicken and onion rings were especially bad for the liver.
“The amount of fat and saturated fats creates a condition called fatty liver,” Dr. Drew Ordon said.
He said the changes in liver enzymes are in line with the effects of hepatitis. That disease can ultimately cause liver failure.
The U.S. has 160,000 fast food restaurants serving an estimated 50 million customers every day.
Regularly eating fast food can damage your liver in ways that are surprisingly similar to hepatitis
“We’re all guilty, and every now and then you have to splurge, but the problem is that so many people are getting into eating fast food, especially kids, as their staple, and I think that’s the point,” Drew Ordon said.
Just ordering a salad won’t help as Drew Ordon warned that any item marked healthy or fresh at a fast food restaurant likely has added chemicals, as there aren’t clear regulations for those foods.
“Some places actually put propylene glycol on the salads, which is anti-freeze, the reason behind that is that it prevents wilting,” said Dr. Ordon.
“And although they say a little anti-freeze isn’t going to hurt you, obviously given a choice you don’t want to be eating anti-freeze.”
