A good way to catch a bad infectious disease

In reading so many nonfiction health adventure
books in such a short period, I've noticed
a trend connecting many infectious diseases.

The book authors have pointed this out, also,
but not to the extent I think is appropriate,
because they're focussed more on the particular
outbreaks they're writing about. I'm seeing
a broad pattern by reading about so many
different disease outbreaks in so many
different places.

What spread Ebola in the Sudan in 1976?

What spreads HIV in Africa?

What spreads Hepatitus C in Pakistan?

(The later comes from a book I've just
finished but haven't reviewed yet,
Level 4 Virus Hunters of the CDC by
Joseph McCormick and Susan Fisher-Hoch.)

Dirty needles.

The old-time fight to get superstitious
rural natives of Africa and Asia to
accept modern medicine is over.

Sort of.

They accept it -- along with the traditional
shamans, healers and folk remedies. But
they don't understand it. The injection
needle has become another kind of magic to
them. Big juju.

So when they go to a hospital they want an
injection. Even if they have no need for
one, they want one. So hospitals give
them vitamins. Anything. Whatever they've
got.

If they can't get to a hospital, they
go to professional injectionists who
make their livings by selling people
injections of antibiotics, fake antibiotics,
vitamins or sugar water.

Few of these poor places can buy a new needle
for every patient, so they reuse them --
even to the point of scraping the point on
a whetstone to keep it sharp enough to
pierce skin. They may boil them at the
end of the day -- but the damage is done.

Inject one person with Ebola with an
antibiotic, then use the same needle to
give vitamins to pregnant women -- a sure
recipe for an epidemic and a lot of
dead babies. And it happened.

Hospitals in Russia have given entire
wards of babies HIV by giving them all
vaccinations with a needle also used on
one baby who got HIV from their mother.

The authors would criticize me for
writing this, but I think it's entirely
possible that this overuse of needles
is at least as responsible for the
widespread HIV infection in heterosexuals
in Africa as is sexual promiscuity. (Not that HIV
can't spread through heterosexual sex.
It certainly can. But not as easily,
or many more heterosexual non drug
abusing nonhemiophiliac Americans
would now be HIV+.)

McCormick and Fisher-Hoch went to an
institute in Pakistan and found the
same thing there by discovering that
huge percentages of rural Pakistanis
were testing positive for Hepatitus C.

That's a stealth virus. It can live
for years inside you without causing
any problems. But eventually, when
you're old or your immune system is
weakened by some other infection, it
starts to attack your liver and can
kill you.

And the cause of its spread is the same
thing -- the people of Pakistan wanting
to get injections to heal and help them --
from doctors and hospitals who cannot
afford a new needle for every patient.

The lesson is clear. If you can possibly
help it, DON'T get injections. Obviously,
don't use self-injected drugs. Don't
get unnecessary vaccines or antibiotics.

When those things are necessary, make
sure that you see the needle come out of
a sealed plastic wrapping.

This is standard in the U.S. and other
developed countries, I'm sure, but you
ought to make sure, just in case,
wherever you are.

It certainly applies in poor countries.
If you must get an injection, ask to
see a new needle come out of an unbroken
plastic wrapper. Pay extra if you have
to. It's better than getting HIV or
Hepatitus C or maybe even Ebola.

And don't get your skin tattooed or
pierced. That's also asking for trouble.