From: Ian blenkharn@ianblenkharn.com
Category: Miscellaneous
Date: 16 Feb 2008
Time: 15:17:04 +0100
Remote Name: 86.134.111.185
Re-useable sharps boxes? I would love these to be abandoned completely - it can't come soon enough!
Whenever sharps bins are emptied instead of sealed and discarded intact there exists a risk of spillage, and thereby of sharps injury. That must be avoided at all costs.
Similarly, reusable sharps boxes carry a risk of infection and cross-infection that must not be overlooked. Runner, from the North Coast Clinical Laboratory, in Sandusky, Ohio, studied the contamination of reusable sharps boxes (Runner JC. Bacterial and viral contamination of reusable sharps containers in a community hospital setting. Am J Infect Control. 2007; 35(8) :527-30*).
30 newly processed, reusable sharps disposal containers were swabbed for the presence of bacteria and viruses. 27 containers (90%) tested positive for bacteria, and 10% of the recovered isolates were gram-negative rods. 9 of 30 (30%) cultures were positive for viruses: HIV (10%), hepatitis A (6.7%), hepatitis B (6.7%), and hepatitis C (13.3%), and several containers tested positive for multiple viruses and bacteria. Thus, reusable sharps containers were returned to that medical facility with significant bacterial and viral contamination.
Further testing is needed to determine the scope of the problem, its impact on safety and hospital hygiene/infection control, thee significance of different materials for ox construction, and the methods of re-processing. However, the risks are real and in weighing the cost of single-use disposable bins against re-processing costs it seems far safer to abandon reprocessing completely.
Ian
* If anyone wants a copy of this paper please get in touch (ian@ianblenkharn.com)
First posted 12-Feb-2008