Indian investigators looking into a deadly hepatitis outbreak traced to infected syringes have uncovered a huge operation to illegally recycle hundreds of tonnes of used medical equipment, officials said.
Gujarat authorities launched the probe two weeks ago after an outbreak of hepatitis B that has killed 56 people and sickened more than 100. The source has been traced primarily to infected syringes, health officials said.
Officials who raided dispensaries, private hospitals and laboratories in the Modasa district — the center of the outbreak — found a flourishing black market in reused medical equipment.
In the last few days, more than 300 tonnes of medical waste was discovered in warehouses, much of it packaged for resale, a senior health official said on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
In Ahmadabad, the state capital, investigators found warehouses where used syringes, needles, saline bottles, IV drips and vials had been sorted, washed and repackaged for sale, said Manish Fenci, a senior city health official.
“We have been able to unearth the network,” Fenci said.
At least 20 doctors have been arrested for using or buying the equipment, state Health Minister Jaynarayan Vyas said.
Two doctors, a father and son believed to have been responsible for transmitting at least a dozen cases of hepatitis using the same syringe on multiple patients, have been charged with culpable homicide, police said.
Hepatitis B can lead to liver damage and cancer. It is spread through infected blood, semen and from using contaminated needles.
It can be prevented through vaccination.
While the scale of the racket has caused a stir, the problem is a well known one. A recent survey by the private Indian Clinical Epidemiology Network estimated that more than 30 percent of needles used in India were reused.
Much of this is caused by ignorance of the dangers, bureaucratic tangles that prevent equipment reaching rural clinics and lack of proper legislation and oversight that allows thousands of unlicensed doctors to flourish.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS