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| Its easy to see how needlesticks can happen... |
This is one for the
veterinarians, veterinary nurses and vet students out there – have you ever had
a needlestick injury? When I learned at the ASID Zoonoses conference that Bartonellaspecies could be transferred by needlestick I wondered how common these types
of incidents are in our profession. Turns out they are quite common!
The wonderful Scott Weese
published a review a couple of years ago and the figures are consistently high –
in one, 64 per cent of female vets had had a needlestick; in another, 87 per
cent of zoo vets had had one or more; and in yet another study 71 per cent of
vet technicians or nurses had had one.
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| Don't worry. He was fine! And so was the vet. |
As Dr Weese points out in
the review (which you can read in its entirety here), HIV and hepatitis C were
big drivers for increased needle safety in human medicine. But the same drive
doesn’t exist in the vet world.
But there are real risks –
not just of transference of blood borne pathogens like Bartonella spp, but also tissue damage with large bore needles, and
injection of agents including live vaccines, pro-inflammatory adjuvants,
chemotherapy
agents and anaesthetic agents.
Studies show that unlike
doctors and nurses who have had the benefits of decades of needle-safety
measures, the majority of vets and nurses still recap needles. So…do you recap? Have you had a needlestick injury? And if you’ve had a needlestick injury, what measures have you taken in
response?
Reference
Weese JS & Jack DC
(2008) Needlestick injuries in veterinary medicine. Canadian Veterinary
Journal 49:780-784
