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Government Plans to Crack Down on Re-use of Syringes
China's health and drug authorities have kicked off a nationwide campaign against the re-use, production and marketing of fake and substandard disposable syringes and other medical instruments.
The Ministry of Health asked all hospitals and medical units to be sure to only use standard medical instruments and to work hard to prevent any discarded instruments from being re-used or re-marketed, said Gong Yuxiu, director of the Nursing Division with the Ministry of Health.
All used instruments must be destroyed by burning or melting and must never be used again, Gong said.
The ministry is currently drafting a new regulation on the prevention of cross-infection in hospitals, which will establish detailed and strict rules on the purchasing, usage and destruction of disposable medical instruments.
The State Drug Administration plans to hold a national meeting this weekend to discuss how to help fight the misuse of disposable medical instruments, which seriously threatens people's health.
A large-scale campaign against the making and marketing of poor-quality medical instruments, organized by the administration, is taking place in Zhejiang, Jiangsu and six other provinces, according to Zhang Jixiang, a spokesman for the administration.
Law enforcement and medical administration departments in Dongyang City in East China's Zhejiang Province recently seized and destroyed about 10 tons of disposal syringes thought to have been used before.
At least 13 people have been detained by the local public security department in connection with the case.
They have been accused of collecting discarded syringes from hospitals, organizing villagers to manually wash them and re-marketing the syringes in new packaging.
Police in the city of Zhenhai in Zhejiang are also detaining three people suspected on engaging in similar illegal activities and have seized 180,000 substandard medical instruments.
In the city of Wujin in neighbouring Jiangsu Province, 4.95 million substandard disposable syringes have been confiscated.
According to Zhang, there are still 34 cases awaiting judgment.
Analysts say that these people risk arrest and ignore public safety by re-using these medical instruments due to the huge profits that can be made on the medical instrument market.
Official statistics indicate that there are about 5,000 manufacturers of medical instruments in China, with a total output value of 30 billion yuan (US$3.6 billion) per annum and an average growth rate of 18 per cent.
However, China still has to import medical instruments valued at about 1 billion yuan (US$120 million) every year.
China should also make more efforts to control the disposal of other medical waste, such as blood samples, said Zhang Shouquan, committee member of the Beijing People's Political Consultative Conference.
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