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Coffeeshop Chit Chat - If u get sick in India, avoid injection!</TD><TD id=msgunetc noWrap align=right>
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</NOBR> </TD><TD class=msgDate noWrap align=right width="30%">9:02 am </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT noWrap align=right width="1%" height=20>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname noWrap width="68%">ALL <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right> (1 of 9) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft width="1%" rowSpan=4> </TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>8109.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>Mastermind behind used syringes racket arrested
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- headline one : end --></TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By P. Jayaram, India Correspondent
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->NEW DELHI: Police have arrested the alleged kingpin of a racket in used disposable syringes which are said to have caused the spread of hepatitis B in western India that claimed 48 lives in the last two weeks.
NDTV channel, which last week exposed the used syringes racket, said police arrested Saijuddin, the alleged mastermind, in Modasa town in Gujarat state.
'I buy it (used syringes) from several people and then sell it in bulk to merchants coming from Ahmedabad and Himmatnagar,' Saijuddin told the channel after he was caught on camera.
He said he bought thousands of used syringes from private clinics and hospitals every day and sold them to regular buyers from the two major cities in the state.
State health officials said that besides the 48 deaths, more than 150 people had been infected.
Hepatitis B is a virus that is spread through blood and bodily fluids.
'This is an epidemic-like situation; on average, we are getting seven to eight patients in our hospital,' Dr Iftikher Malik of a charity hospital in Modasa was quoted as saying in the DNA newspaper.
'Most of the patients are from poor socio-economic backgrounds and in the age group of 15 to 40 years.'
Several medical teams, including those from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases, New Delhi, and the National Institute of Virology, Pune, have visited Modasa as the state government, trying to contain the spread of the disease, launched a mass vaccination campaign in the town last Saturday.
Police raided 35 private hospitals and confiscated hundreds of thousands of recycled syringes, NDTV reported.
Besides Saijuddin, the head of a private hospital was also arrested.
Earlier in the week, police arrested two doctors on charges of homicide for spreading hepatitis B by injecting patients using contaminated syringes.
'These doctors have been treating the people without any concern for safety or hygiene for long. Such a thing was just waiting to happen,' Mr Kirti Patel, a resident of Modasa told DNA.
Health experts say there is a huge racket in fake drugs and used disposable syringes in India. Although the government had introduced self-destruct syringes, the poor still opted for ordinary disposable syringes, which are cheaper.
According to a survey conducted by Core Healthcare, an Ahmedabad-based company selling pharmaceuticals and health-care products, 78 per cent of the total injected dosages in the country are administered through used and recycled syringes. It said the country produced only 800 million syringes each year although it requires 3.7 billion syringes annually.
[email protected]
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</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- headline one : end --></TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By P. Jayaram, India Correspondent
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- show image if available --></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->NEW DELHI: Police have arrested the alleged kingpin of a racket in used disposable syringes which are said to have caused the spread of hepatitis B in western India that claimed 48 lives in the last two weeks.
NDTV channel, which last week exposed the used syringes racket, said police arrested Saijuddin, the alleged mastermind, in Modasa town in Gujarat state.
'I buy it (used syringes) from several people and then sell it in bulk to merchants coming from Ahmedabad and Himmatnagar,' Saijuddin told the channel after he was caught on camera.
He said he bought thousands of used syringes from private clinics and hospitals every day and sold them to regular buyers from the two major cities in the state.
State health officials said that besides the 48 deaths, more than 150 people had been infected.
Hepatitis B is a virus that is spread through blood and bodily fluids.
'This is an epidemic-like situation; on average, we are getting seven to eight patients in our hospital,' Dr Iftikher Malik of a charity hospital in Modasa was quoted as saying in the DNA newspaper.
'Most of the patients are from poor socio-economic backgrounds and in the age group of 15 to 40 years.'
Several medical teams, including those from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases, New Delhi, and the National Institute of Virology, Pune, have visited Modasa as the state government, trying to contain the spread of the disease, launched a mass vaccination campaign in the town last Saturday.
Police raided 35 private hospitals and confiscated hundreds of thousands of recycled syringes, NDTV reported.
Besides Saijuddin, the head of a private hospital was also arrested.
Earlier in the week, police arrested two doctors on charges of homicide for spreading hepatitis B by injecting patients using contaminated syringes.
'These doctors have been treating the people without any concern for safety or hygiene for long. Such a thing was just waiting to happen,' Mr Kirti Patel, a resident of Modasa told DNA.
Health experts say there is a huge racket in fake drugs and used disposable syringes in India. Although the government had introduced self-destruct syringes, the poor still opted for ordinary disposable syringes, which are cheaper.
According to a survey conducted by Core Healthcare, an Ahmedabad-based company selling pharmaceuticals and health-care products, 78 per cent of the total injected dosages in the country are administered through used and recycled syringes. It said the country produced only 800 million syringes each year although it requires 3.7 billion syringes annually.
[email protected]
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