Read Marc's interview with PSFK and get his views on trends that make him optimistic about the future, transparency and inspiration!
Showing posts with label transmission. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transmission. Show all posts
Friday, 18 March 2011
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Mara moja katika maisha, mara nguni ni kifo
"Once is life, twice is death" in Swahili
FACT: In Africa, 20 million medical injections contaminated with blood from a patient with HIV are administered every year. (Source: Reid 2009) This is a problem so severe that the WHO (World Health Organisation) reports that 50% of all injections given globally are unsafe.
Four committed mums will climb Mount Kilimanjaro for the SafePoint Trust starting their climb on Thursday 28th October for nine days they will experience an example of virtually every ecosystem on earth. On the surface, not an unusual challenge to raise money for a charity; indeed they will blend into 25,000 people who set foot in Tanzania, every year, to climb Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak. But the difference about this climb is the girls have one purpose - to give something back to the Tanzanian community.
They celebrate being the first all-mother group to climb the gruelling Western Beach route in support of the SafePoint Trust, a UK-based charity that uses information to solve basic healthcare problems – with a particular focus on unsafe injections. SafePoint runs hard-hitting public awareness campaigns, targeting both healthcare workers and the general public, increasing their knowledge of how to give and receive safe injections. SafePoint also actively lobbies for the change in legislation to using AD (Auto Disable) syringes only (International Standards Organization (ISO) standard AD syringes that can physically only be used once).
Money raised from this climb will benefit Tanzania directly; a substantial donation of AD syringes, compliant with the Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA), will be given to the Ministry to distribute and stock hospitals with a life saving product. Allowing the 33,000 healthcare workers that have already been trained to use AD syringes (under the John Snow Inc President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (JSI PEPFAR) project) to do their jobs properly, to save lives, not take them:
"Mara moja katika maisha, mara nguni ni kifo."
Used once is life, used twice is death.
Used once is life, used twice is death.
The team of mums climbing have collectively ten children between them and hope that news of their climb and the SafePoint message will spread to all mothers in Tanzania to ensure that they demand for all their children and family members, the following:
- A syringe, is always taken from a new sterile packet
- Ensure it is used once only on the patient
- Then make sure it is safely disposed of in a sharps bin
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Live Chat with Marc Koska
Reboot America chat with Marc Koska, Founder of The SafePoint Trust
held on Tuesday 19th October 2010 and hosted by Joshua Robinson:
Hello everyone and welcome to this afternoon's live chat with Marc Koska. For more than 20 years, he's been working on the problem of unsafe injections throughout the developing world. And today, he's here to answer our questions.
Joshua Robinson:
Welcome Marc, thanks for joining us.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:32 Joshua Robinson
1:32
marc koska:
very welcome
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:32 marc koska
1:33
Joshua Robinson:
In 1997, you patented what is known as an auto-disable syringe, which insures that no needle can be used twice. Can you explain why it is so vital?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:33 Joshua Robinson
1:35
marc koska:
sadly in the developing world syringes are reused. the problem needed a number of solutions but one of them was an economic syringe designed so that it could only be used once. that would stop the transmission resulting from the reuse of many fatal viruses.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:35 marc koska
1:36
Joshua Robinson:
When we last spoke (for this piece on the Daily Beast), you told me about some truly shocking medical practices in the developing world. Could you describe a few of those here?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:36 Joshua Robinson
1:36
marc koska:
the syringe I designed can be made on the same machinery, for the same cost and used in the same way as a normal, plastic syringe.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:36 marc koska
1:37
marc koska:
sure.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:37 marc koska
1:38
marc koska:
in India 62% of all injections given are unsafe, resulting in something like 300,000 deaths a year.
in Pakistan there are not enough syringes in the country for each person yet on average each person receives 14!
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:38 marc koska
1:40
marc koska:
bkr's question:
I read a newspaper article in 1984 which predicted syringes as a possible problem and that started me off!
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:40 marc koska
1:40
[Comment From bkrbkr: ]
Was there singular, memorable instance (or person) that inspired you to set down the path of creating the auto-disable syringe?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:40 bkr
1:41
[Comment From BenBen: ]
I wonder if you could compare your own success with getting the one-use syringe to catch on in Africa with the less successful campaigns to encourage condom use there. Both measures are important to fighting HIV. Why has the latter lagged?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:41 Ben
1:41
marc koska:
ben's question:
Not an expert but think that condoms are not administered at point of use if you get my point by health professionals. doctors and healthcare workers should know better.. First Do No Harm!
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:41 marc koska
1:42
[Comment From Alan TrainAlan Train: ]
Can you talk for a moment about the types of corruption you encountered in the Third World. Aid workers complain all the time about this sort of thing. Where was the "bakshish" resistance and how do you get around it?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:42 Alan Train
1:42
marc koska:
Alan Train: Always refused, and never got involved. Probably slowed us down, but I sleep OK!
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:42 marc koska
1:43
Joshua Robinson:
But more generally, it hasn't always been easy dealing with local health officials has it?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:43 Joshua Robinson
1:45
The Daily Beast:
Check out SafePoint Trust's website to learn more.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:45 The Daily Beast
1:45
marc koska:
OK I guess, but they are mostly in very slow systems. we are only trying to help so it is very frustrating to see a solution not applied as fast as it might. that lead me to find other solutions to push through such as media pressure on politicians.
Sonny B: Yes. I was not the first guy to think of this. But all designs before me were immunisation based which is a small (5%) market. Mine was the first one for all injection types.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:45 marc koska
1:46
[Comment From SonnyBSonnyB: ]
Have other syringe manufacturers followed your lead?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:46 SonnyB
1:47
[Comment From JLJL: ]
What are the next innovations you are working on ?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:47 JL
1:47
marc koska:
JL: Better needles for the developed world, less plastic, and innovative ways of functioning during the injection.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:47 marc koska
1:48
[Comment From Guest Guest : ]
What I want to know if how prevelant it was and what sorts of pressures were put on you by those looking to corrupt the system
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:48 Guest
1:49
marc koska:
Guest: It is out there! Cash is King!
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:49 marc koska
1:49
[Comment From cb cb : ]
Do they use your syringes in first-world hospitals?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:49 cb
1:50
[Comment From kk kk : ]
Do you consider this your life work? What did you do before you created SafePoint?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:50 kk
1:50
marc koska:
KK: Yes, at least until 50% all of all injections in the developing world are safe.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:50 marc koska
1:51
The Daily Beast:
Hey guys, keep those questions coming and we'll make sure Mr. Koska sees them!
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:51 The Daily Beast
1:51
marc koska:
cb: No. Firstly we only target developing world and on the whole the west is pretty good.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:51 marc koska
1:51
[Comment From DR. DDR. D: ]
What is the cost to use your syringes as compared to the old method of reusing? Correct me if I'm wrong but It seems like single-use syringes would cost more overall.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:51 DR. D
1:55
The Daily Beast:
On SafePoint's website check out videos of Mr. Koska and his tireless work to educate and save lives.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:55 The Daily Beast
1:55
marc koska:
Well reusing a syringe 20 times makes each injection a fraction of a penny in cost. The drug however is many times the cost of one syringe. Auto-Disable syringes cost approx 5¢ each. Normal syringes approx 4¢.
The point is that anywhere in the world would we condone the transmission of HIV or Hepatitis for 5¢. Just financially it costs any country thousands of $ per case, without even touching on the human side.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:55 marc koska
1:55
[Comment From CC: ]
Do you have a medical background?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:55 C
1:56
marc koska:
C; product design
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:56 marc koska
1:56
[Comment From cbcb: ]
But I feel like I have seen nurses in modern hospitals using single-use syringes. Has this now become an industry?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:56 cb
1:57
marc koska:
cb: All syringes are disposable. The new design are called Auto-Disable, and can only be used once.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:57 marc koska
1:57
[Comment From KLMKLM: ]
How do you fund this project? Do you have independent fundraisers or do you align yourself with a specific charity?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:57 KLM
1:58
marc koska:
KLM: I fund it through private support.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:58 marc koska
1:58
Were you aware that this was such a global problem?
yes
( 33% )
no
( 33% )
I am now
( 33% )
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:58
1:58
marc koska:
pls do check out www.marckoska.com and www.safepointtrust.org for more information
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:58 marc koska
1:59
[Comment From Yankee FanYankee Fan: ]
Are needles the end of the road or is the theory the same with all sterilized medical equipment. Ie, what other possibilities are there?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 1:59 Yankee Fan
2:01
marc koska:
Great ?
There are many wonderful concepts and products out there and I want them to succeed.
But for the developing world I fear the technology will not reach economic levels for mass use. Multi tiered world we live in!
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:01 marc koska
2:02
[Comment From MikeDoverMikeDover: ]
Whose responsibility is it to use these syringes? The doctor or the patient?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:02 MikeDover
2:02
marc koska:
doctor in theory but in practice it is both plus the Government through supplies and legislation
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:02 marc koska
2:03
Joshua Robinson:
Can you elaborate on the importance of educating patients to ask for new syringes?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:03 Joshua Robinson
2:04
The Daily Beast:
The question is simple: Would you want to get an injection with a clean sterile syringe or a used dirty one? Be a lifesaver.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:04 The Daily Beast
2:06
Should 1st-world countries withhold foreign aid to a developing world country unless basic health principles were in practice?
yes
( 100% )
no
( 0% )
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:06
2:06
marc koska:
there are many pressures on developing world health systems and the health care worker is "second to God!" So by informing the public we force a standard of behaviour upon both parties.
pls watch "Making the Point" on the film section of www.safepointtrust.org and you can see i tackled this in india.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:06 marc koska
2:07
[Comment From Young DentistYoung Dentist: ]
Are the needles being used in third world dentistry?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:07 Young Dentist
2:08
marc koska:
Yes they are but not enough! However dentists have systems specific to dentistry so not always applicable to use a plastic syringe, due to cartridges and drugs.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:08 marc koska
2:09
Joshua Robinson:
Where have you encountered resistance to the single-use syringes — either from patients, doctors, or governments?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:09 Joshua Robinson
2:12
marc koska:
Governments. AD syringes save money as less are used in time as less illness is spread (by doctors!). So it is so unbelievable that the phone isn't ringing with invitations, but I have to call them!
Individuals are sane, and don't wish to be harmed. Governments can't see the wood for the trees!
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:12 marc koska
2:13
Joshua Robinson:
You'll be speaking at the Daily Beast's Innovators Summit this week in New Orleans. Can you give us a preview of what you will be talking about?
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:13 Joshua Robinson
2:15
The Daily Beast:
Check up on all the panelists and speakers who will be at TDB's Reboot America Innovator's Summit starting later this week in NOLA.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:15 The Daily Beast
2:15
marc koska:
Well I want to tell my story but stress the future challenges that not only my subject face but many for helping the developing world. I believe there has to be a better way of helping speed up the scaling of winning, proven ideas and that has to be connected with open sourcing.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:15 marc koska
2:16
Joshua Robinson:
Thanks for joining us today, Marc. For more information about Marc’s work, be sure to check out www.safepointtrust.org and www.marckoska.com.
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:16 Joshua Robinson
2:16
marc koska:
pleasure
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:16 marc koska
2:17
The Daily Beast:
Join the conversation on Reboot America's Facebook & Twitter!
http://twitter.com/rebootamerica
http://www.facebook.com/rebootamerica
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:17 The Daily Beast
2:18
The Daily Beast:
Thank you to everyone who joined us today. And many thanks to Marc Koska! Stay tuned for more TDB Live Chats in the near future!
Tuesday October 19, 2010 2:18 The Daily Beast
2:19
Taken from The Daily Beast
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
Women take on Kilimanjaro for charity
A WOMAN from Henley is hoping to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to help the health of the country’s people.Catherine English, of Cromwell Road, and three other women will be raising money for SafePoint, a charity that is trying to start a safe injection healthcare programme by donating two million sterile disposable syringes.
The charity was founded by Marc Koska, who is married to one of the other women taking part and does business with Mrs English’s husband Nick, a Bremont watchmaker.
Mrs English said she jumped at the chance to become involved in the climb later this month when another woman dropped out. She said: “As well as climbing the mountain, we will be visiting schools, orphanages and hospitals to educate children, nurses and teachers in safe and sterile injections.
“Unsafe injections can lead to HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and malaria and the Tanzania campaign aims to ease the burden of these diseases.
“A syringe costs just 7p. The simple message is ‘one injection — one syringe’.”
Mrs English, who has three children, Elodie, three, and twins Euan and Capucine, five, who attend Trinity school in Henley, will be climbing with Anna Koska, Clare Beale and Nicoletta Lacobacci, all from East Sussex. She has been training five or six times a week and meeting the other women once a month to do a big climb or walk.
She said: “We were advised to start working on our upper leg strength, back strength and core stability. We’ve been walking and cycling up hills and generally bulking up our legs.”
The women hope to raise between £10,000 and £20,000 for the K1 syringes, which were invented by Mr Koska.
One way of raising money is by “selling” flags to be taken to the top of the 19,334ft volanic mountain and photographed with the quartet.
To make a donation, visit http://www.justgiving.com/TheClimb-Tanzania2010
Taken from the Henley Standard
See also "Local charity SafePoint to scale dizzy heights in October"
.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Spread the word and forward this film
We make no apologies for immediately asking you to do one small thing upon reading this blog post.
Your support is invaluable in helping us bring to light the devastating consequences that unsafe injection practices can have.
Please take two minutes out of your day and click here (www.lifesaveraction.org) to see the most recent film Marc has made on the issue of injection safety.
Safe Injection Message
Click here to Comment on this video, and Favourite, Rate and Share it in YouTube
LifeSaver is a campaign that is inviting all global AD (auto-disable) syringe manufacturers to include the new LifeSaver logo and message "New Packet. Used Once. Safely Disposed" on all their packaging. LifeSaver represents the procedure given by a health worker and received by a patient, and can be simply adopted, free of charge, by any organisation. The logo is distinctive and easily recognized, and will act as a unique guarantee of a safe injection.
For more information, see www.marckoska.com.
Your support is invaluable in helping us bring to light the devastating consequences that unsafe injection practices can have.
Please take two minutes out of your day and click here (www.lifesaveraction.org) to see the most recent film Marc has made on the issue of injection safety.
Safe Injection Message
.
In it, you'll hear how fatal diseases like HIV and Hepatitis are most often spread by unsafe injections and by the everyday actions of heatlhcare workers in millions of under funded clinics in developing countries.
We would ask you please to watch the film, and then forward the link to as many friends and family as you can.
We know from our work over the past 25 years that awareness prompts action.
We're aiming to reach our target of 10 million lives saved this year, and we need your help to do so.
Thank you!
We would ask you please to watch the film, and then forward the link to as many friends and family as you can.
We know from our work over the past 25 years that awareness prompts action.
We're aiming to reach our target of 10 million lives saved this year, and we need your help to do so.
Thank you!
What is LifeSaver?
LifeSaver is a campaign that is inviting all global AD (auto-disable) syringe manufacturers to include the new LifeSaver logo and message "New Packet. Used Once. Safely Disposed" on all their packaging. LifeSaver represents the procedure given by a health worker and received by a patient, and can be simply adopted, free of charge, by any organisation. The logo is distinctive and easily recognized, and will act as a unique guarantee of a safe injection.For more information, see www.marckoska.com.
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
The Climb Tanzania 2010 is launched
On 26th May, The Climb Tanzania 2010 was launched in conjunction with Mountain Range Restaurants' 5th anniversary celebrations at The Swan in Forest Row.
Background
Marc Koska OBE has worked tirelessly over the last 25 years on Global Healthcare with a particular focus on Injection Safety. After spending years researching the syringe industry, Marc invented an AD (Auto Disable) syringe, the K1 - that physically prevents re-use. To-date Marc and the K1 have been credited with saving well over 9 Million lives but Marc knew from the start that product alone would not stop this silent epidemic, so Marc set up The SafePoint Trust in 2006. The main purpose of SafePoint is to use information to solve this very basic healthcare need, and this is done by delivering hard-hitting public awareness campaigns. Marc and SafePoint work hard to ensure that the public are educated with this lifesaving message, coupled with extensive lobbying for legislation change at ministerial level ensures that this basic human right is restored.
Outline
Marc Koska OBE and The SafePoint Trust would like to invite you to support them on:
The Climb 2010 Kilimanjaro, Tanzania - Rising 4800m above the East African plains, 270km from the shores of the Indian Ocean and measuring up to 40km across, Kilimanjaro is a bizarre geological oddity, the tallest freestanding mountain in the world and one formed, shaped, eroded and scarred by the twin forces of fire and ice. It is actually a volcano, or rather three volcanoes, with the two main peaks, Kibo and Mawenzi, the summits of two of those volcanoes.
Five team members will climb the mountain armed with 20 flags – each flag will be fully branded with a logo from each sponsor. Day seven will see them at the peak of the mountain, at this point a photographer will ensure each flag is photographed capturing the stunning view and the euphoric atmosphere of the team.
On the teamÊŒs return the UK sponsors will get a framed glossy photograph of their flag at the peak. Along with this your company will feature heavily in all publicity around the event including a press release, national and regional newspapers, regional TV and radio stations and leading business / lifestyle magazines. The whole event will be posted on facebook, twitter and will have its own blog. Sponsors can also make their logo available to feature on the kit of the climbers.
A one-off donation of £5,000 to buy a flag is all that is required and 90% of this donation / sponsorship money will enable us to give Two Million syringes to Tanzania. SafePoint will present the container of syringes to the Hon Prof. David Mwakyusam, Heath Minister of Tanzania once they have finished the climb.
Why Tanzania?
Tanzania are at the forefront of safe healthcare in Africa, they are to become one of only two countries converted to using AD syringes in the ECSA Region. With their policy already in place, trained healthcare workers and a public information film donated by SafePoint they are ready to reduce country medical costs and ease the HIV / Hepatitis disease burden. More importantly with this donation we will ensure they have enough product to stock the 26 regions at the start of this initiative.
Facts and figures on unsafe healthcare:
• Each and every year due to unsafe injections there are:
• 23,000 HIV Infections
• 1,000,000 Hepatitis C Infections
• 21,000,000 Hepatitis B Infections
• RESULTING IN 1,300,000 DEATHS EACH YEAR (Source: WHO World Health Organisation)
• Some 17 billion injections are given each year, and 7 billion of these are unsafe medical injections (Source: Hutin 2003)
• Malaria kills 1,000,000 - so this silent epidemic kills more people each year (Source: WHO World Health Organisation)
• In Africa 20 million medical injections contaminated with blood from a patient with HIV are administered every year (Source: Reid 2009)
• At least 50% of injections given were unsafe (Source: WHO World Health Organisation)
• A syringe is used on average 7 times in the developing world
• Every 24 seconds a child dies as a result of an unsafe injection
Further information
Mountain Range Restaurants are supporting The SafePoint Trust on their Climb 2010. Mountain Range also celebrate their five year anniversary this year in conjunction with this SafePoint will send five people to climb Kilimanjaro raising money to donate syringes to Tanzania.
http://www.marckoska.com/
http://www.safepointtrust.org/
You can reach the SafePoint Team on: 01825 713722 or via email: info@safepointtrust.org
.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Marc Koska OBE Launches Safe Injection Project at Mountain Range Restaurants’ 5th Anniversary
Mountain Range Restaurants celebrate their 5th Anniversary at The Swan, Forest Row, whilst supporting Marc Koska’s local charity, The SafePoint Trust.
Sponsored climb of Mount Kilimanjaro announced to make Tanzania a safe injection country.
Sponsored climb of Mount Kilimanjaro announced to make Tanzania a safe injection country.
Forest Row, East Sussex - Marc Koska OBE and his charity, The SafePoint Trust, recently launched an exciting new project for Tanzania at The Swan Mountain Range Restaurant in Forest Row during Mountain Range’s 5th anniversary celebrations.
Generously supported by David Downard, Mountain Range Restaurants CEO, guests were warmly invited to congratulate the company for a successful 5 years in business as well as to celebrate Marc Koska’s achievements in global healthcare and to support his charity The SafePoint Trust on their next venture: “The Climb Tanzania 2010”.
A team of three mothers from East Sussex have taken up the challenge to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to raise enough money (£100,000) to enable The SafePoint Trust to donate 2 million AD (Auto Disable) syringes to Tanzania. This will enable Tanzania to kick start this safe injection healthcare project and so become a safe injection country. They plan to present the donation to Tanzania’s minister for Health and Social Welfare, Prof David Mwakyusathe, in person shortly after they finish the climb, which is set to take place at the end of October 2010. It is likely to take about 7 days to reach the summit. The climbers, who will very quickly have to get used to high altitudes, are:
- Anna Koska (Marc’s wife and SafePoint Supporter)
- Ginny Simpson (SafePoint)
- Clare Beale (SafePoint Supporter)
The SafePoint Trust is encouraging local businesses to buy a flag for £5,000 each. All flags will journey up to the summit of 19,365 ft and be photographed with the climbers, capturing their euphoric moment. Those businesses which buy flags will of course feature heavily in all publicity that surrounds the climb, since collectively, by donating 2 Million syringes to Tanzania, they will ensure that a total of 700,000 people will receive safe injections.
Why Tanzania?
Tanzania is at the forefront of safe healthcare in Africa and is to become one of only two countries converted to using AD syringes in the ECSA Region (Eastern, Central and Southern Africa). With their policy already in place, trained healthcare workers and a public information film produced and donated by SafePoint, the country is ready to reduce its medical costs and ease its HIV/Hepatitis disease burden. More importantly, with this donation in place, Tanzania will have sufficient AD syringes to stock all 26 regions throughout the entire country from the very start of this initiative.
Facts and figures on unsafe healthcare
• Each and every year due to unsafe injections there are:
o 23,000 HIV Infections
o 1,000,000 Hepatitis C Infections
o 21,000,000 Hepatitis B Infections
o Resulting in 1,300,000 deaths each year
(Source: WHO World Health Organisation)
• Some 17 billion medical injections are given each year, and 7 billion of these are unsafe
(Source: Hutin 2003)
• Malaria kills 1,000,000 - so this silent epidemic – unsafe injections - kills even more people each year
(Source: WHO World Health Organisation)
• In Africa, 20 million medical injections, contaminated with blood from a patient with HIV, are administered every year
(Source: Reid 2009)
• At least 50% of injections given, globally, are unsafe
(Source: WHO World Health Organisation)
• A syringe is used on average 7 times in the developing world
• Every 24 seconds, a child dies as a result of an unsafe injection
For more information about Mountain Range Restaurants, visit: http://www.mountainrangerestaurants.co.uk
About Marc Koska OBE and The SafePoint Trust
Marc Koska OBE has worked tirelessly over the last 25 years on global healthcare with a particular focus on injection safety. After spending years researching the syringe industry, Marc invented an AD (Auto Disable) syringe - the K1 - that physically prevents re-use. To date, Marc and the K1 have been credited with saving well over 9 million lives, but Marc knew from the start that product alone would not stop this silent epidemic. So he founded The SafePoint Trust in 2006. The main purpose of SafePoint is to use information to solve this very basic healthcare need. This is done by delivering hard-hitting public awareness campaigns. Marc and SafePoint work hard to ensure that the public are educated with this lifesaving message, coupled with extensive lobbying for legislative changes at ministerial level, to ensure that this basic human right is restored. For more information, visit: http://www.marckoska.com and http://www.safepointtrust.org
For more information, please contact:
Ginny Simpson
SafePoint Trust UK
The Granary
Pippingford
East Sussex
TN22 3HW
+44 (0)1825 713722
info@safepointtrust.org
http://www.safepointtrust.org
Press release submitted by: WorldWidePR.net
.
Friday, 14 May 2010
Marc Koska Launches LifeSaver
.
Philanthropist, Social Entrepreneur and inventor, Marc Koska, OBE, launches the LifeSaver campaign:
.
LifeSaver is a campaign that is inviting all global AD (auto-disable) syringe manufacturers to include the new LifeSaver logo and message:
"New Packet. Used Once. Safely Disposed"
on all their packaging. LifeSaver represents the procedure given by a health worker and received by a patient, and can be simply adopted, free of charge, by any organisation. The logo is distinctive and easily recognized, and will act as a unique guarantee of a safe injection.
Marc Koska: "The question to you is simple: Would you want to have an injection with a clean sterile syringe or a used dirty one? Exactly, and so would everyone else! Please send this video link to as many people as you can so that they become aware of this issue. Please help me get millions of hits recorded on YouTube! Thanks!"LifeSaverAction now also has a Facebook Page (please Like it) and a Facebook Group (please Join it).
For more information, visit http://www.marckoska.com
.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
The TEDxProject: Marc Koska - 1.3m reasons to re-invent the syringe
by Christian Long
Reflection by Gabriella B.
You’ve been to the hospital, or the clinic before.
Think about it. It was probably immaculately clean, the walls were a neutral, mint green, or pale blue, perhaps, a nice beige. You can smell the antiseptic, and hear hushed muted noises all around.
The crinkle of white paper on examination tables, the ring of the phone from the office. The soft beeping and clicking of expensive machines you barely understand the purpose of. A few people are wandering about the ever frigid halls avoiding nurses and doctors hurrying about authoritatively in crisp white coats or pale blue scrubs. Worried relatives are sitting in plushy chairs leafing through decade old magazines.
Now imagine with me a hot stuffy room. The light is dim through the slightly grimy windows and you can hear the discordant cacophony of the busy street just outside the door. Besides that, the room is full to bursting with sickly people all desperate for a life saving injection, from doctors and nurses who may or may not be trained. It’s dusty and hot, the beds are little more than cots placed in rows to get as many as possible in the already small rooms.
That is what you’d see if you happened to be in any of the poorer sectors of Asia. AIDS and many other viruses are rampant in these areas and are spreading with the help of well meaning doctors and nurses.
How could this be happening? It’s really as simple as a syringe. You know what I’m talking about. You probably have one or two in your kitchen drawers. The issue most developing countries face is that not only are these syringes being reused but there is a business in the collection and repackaging of used syringes.
This places massive risks on a single, life saving shot. Aside from the obvious problem of sanitation there is also the issue of cross contamination of medicines and the side effects of a bad mix.
As Koska explains many of the patients view doctors as ‘next to God’ and trust them to do the right thing. He tells the story of some children in Pakistan whose job is to collect used syringes from the back of hospitals, wash them, repackage them and sell them for more than what a sterilized syringe costs. In china this is even more of a problem. One story of an Indonesian school is particularly appalling of children being given used syringes to play with and then using them to drink from.
So what can be done to prevent the annual death of 1.3 million people due to the reuse of syringes? The answer proved surprisingly simple. As Koska demonstrates the answer was there the entire time, we only needed someone who cared enough about the problem to start acting on the solution.
He has developed a syringe that looks and works just like an ordinary syringe, and is even made in the same machines as ordinary syringes at the same cost. The crucial difference is that his syringes lock in place and break if an attempt at reuse is made.
Simple, no?
So I guess the question we have to ask ourselves now, is why it took 1.3 million deaths for someone to care enough?
Excerpted from:
Marc Koska - 1.3m reasons to re-invent the syringe
Original TED page with speaker bio, links, comments, etc:
Marc Koska - 1.3m reasons to re-invent the syringe
.
Reflection by Gabriella B.
You’ve been to the hospital, or the clinic before.
Think about it. It was probably immaculately clean, the walls were a neutral, mint green, or pale blue, perhaps, a nice beige. You can smell the antiseptic, and hear hushed muted noises all around.
The crinkle of white paper on examination tables, the ring of the phone from the office. The soft beeping and clicking of expensive machines you barely understand the purpose of. A few people are wandering about the ever frigid halls avoiding nurses and doctors hurrying about authoritatively in crisp white coats or pale blue scrubs. Worried relatives are sitting in plushy chairs leafing through decade old magazines.
Now imagine with me a hot stuffy room. The light is dim through the slightly grimy windows and you can hear the discordant cacophony of the busy street just outside the door. Besides that, the room is full to bursting with sickly people all desperate for a life saving injection, from doctors and nurses who may or may not be trained. It’s dusty and hot, the beds are little more than cots placed in rows to get as many as possible in the already small rooms.
That is what you’d see if you happened to be in any of the poorer sectors of Asia. AIDS and many other viruses are rampant in these areas and are spreading with the help of well meaning doctors and nurses.
How could this be happening? It’s really as simple as a syringe. You know what I’m talking about. You probably have one or two in your kitchen drawers. The issue most developing countries face is that not only are these syringes being reused but there is a business in the collection and repackaging of used syringes.
This places massive risks on a single, life saving shot. Aside from the obvious problem of sanitation there is also the issue of cross contamination of medicines and the side effects of a bad mix.
As Koska explains many of the patients view doctors as ‘next to God’ and trust them to do the right thing. He tells the story of some children in Pakistan whose job is to collect used syringes from the back of hospitals, wash them, repackage them and sell them for more than what a sterilized syringe costs. In china this is even more of a problem. One story of an Indonesian school is particularly appalling of children being given used syringes to play with and then using them to drink from.
So what can be done to prevent the annual death of 1.3 million people due to the reuse of syringes? The answer proved surprisingly simple. As Koska demonstrates the answer was there the entire time, we only needed someone who cared enough about the problem to start acting on the solution.
He has developed a syringe that looks and works just like an ordinary syringe, and is even made in the same machines as ordinary syringes at the same cost. The crucial difference is that his syringes lock in place and break if an attempt at reuse is made.
Simple, no?
So I guess the question we have to ask ourselves now, is why it took 1.3 million deaths for someone to care enough?
Excerpted from:
Marc Koska - 1.3m reasons to re-invent the syringe
Original TED page with speaker bio, links, comments, etc:
Marc Koska - 1.3m reasons to re-invent the syringe
.
Monday, 29 March 2010
Marc Koska: The Man Who Saved 9 Million Lives
Marc Koska, founder of The SafePoint Trust was interviewed for an article entitled 'Marc Koska: The Man Who Saved 9 Million Lives' in the current issue of Peter Gillham's magazine Organic Connections.The article starts:
"Unique is a good word to describe Marc Koska. 'Since I was a kid, I always wanted to get involved in a large intervention on a big scale,' he told Organic Connections. 'I was always looking for something. If I had lived 200 years ago, I would have wanted to be the guy who killed all the rats in the Black Death. And I started having that drive when I was about six.'
Organic Connections: Marc Koska: The Man Who Saved 9 Million Lives
Unlike many others, Marc never forgot his dream; as a young adult, he was always on the lookout—and one day he stumbled upon it. 'Years went by and I didn’t really settle into anything because I was still waiting for my big moment,' he recounted. 'Then in May 1984, I read a newspaper article that discussed the fact that reused syringes would be a major transmission route for HIV. That was exactly the bit that I was looking for.' Marc was 23 at the time."
For more information on Marc, his life and activities, please visit his website at www.marckoska.com.
For further data on Star Syringes, see their website at www.starsyringe.com.
To learn more about SafePoint Trust, visit www.safepointtrust.org.
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Marc Koska's DLD talk, word for word
.
Marc Koska at DLD10
Transcript of a talk given by Marc Koska at DLD10 about the transmission of disease through unsafe injections - and the solution to this problem that he invented:
Steffi: Marc Koska, Marc has a special thing; he is devoted to the humanitarian cause for 20 years. He invented of an AD syringe called K1 - physically prevents re-use, but you tell it better.
Marc: Thank you Steffi. Well I’d really like to thank Steffi and her team for the warm welcome and secondly just to fulfill a promise, to mention Gabriella from HP because I did say that I would do that.
I promise, I make you one promise also before I start that this will be the lowest tech presentation that you see today. Everything else has just been in another level compared to where I operate. So here we go.
My subject is the re-use of syringes. The re-use of syringes kills 1.3 million people by transmitting viruses from one patient to another. It actually results in also 23 million cases of Hepatitis B and you can imagine the cost of treating that on a global scale, and that’s a cumulative number; 23 million cases every single year. Syringes on average are used around 4 times in the developing world and it's just unacceptable, so I decided to do something about it. In fact it kills more people than malaria, which currently kills about 1 million a year.
These three children that I met in an orphanage in Delhi sadly all had HIV and two of them have passed away now. They had HIV because they went and got an injection from a doctor that their parents had taken them to and were supervising. But what was the saddest thing is that all three of these were actually orphaned straight afterwards. Their parents gave them away once they became HIV positive, which is a double tragedy.
Re-use is a problem and this scum bag doctor here in India admitted to me that he had actually re-used this syringe 25 times in one day. This footage here shows you some undercover film that we took in a hospital (again in India) where 40 medicines were delivered; you can see them on the tray in the top corner, and 40 medicines were delivered with two syringes only, to the whole floor of that hospital. And in a minute, you’ll see a nurse return (here she comes) back to the tray, which is their station and drop back the syringe, ready to be used on this next patient. And this is happening on an hourly, minute-by-minute basis across India.
These needles are wet and they're ready to be used again. They are not wet in Europe, they are only wet in the developing world because they’ve been washed downstairs and then bought back up. Patients are often given the choice to pick a needle.
Outside hospitals, we find baths created actually to wash the syringes on a wholesale basis. This is the number of barrels and plungers that were in that bath. If you look closely you can see what’s inside them. This lady was burnt in a dowry burning in Pakistan, and when I talked to her, I asked her why she was back because all her burns were all healed, but still with bad disfigurement. She said she was in the hospital to be treated for Hepatitis B. I asked her where she had contracted it, and ironically (she didn’t see the irony), she contracted it in that very room that we were standing in, taking that photograph. Ten years earlier, being treated for the burns and it was something that has just plagued her life.
This syringe maybe is the world record holder. The ink has come off the barrel and that means that it must have been used over a 100 times. There’s recycling and this is a 6 year-old girl, early in the morning in Islamabad, leaving (in Erdu this says health centre), leaving a health centre with a bag from yesterday's work; there’s blood bags, there’s scalpels, there’s syringes and needles in there, and she’s taking them off to be recycled.
There’s a growing market for plastic. Not necessarily for re-use, but also for washing and recycling back into the market. And while they’re doing this, these kids, they bash into each other and they prick themselves. And I took this photograph and I was so utterly ashamed when one boy poked the other boy with a needle and his hand started bleeding and I felt absolutely devastated that I had caused that by being the white man taking the photograph. He said “no, no don’t worry, it happens 5 times a day.” (which it did).
In China, wholesale recycling again and then re-sorting to be sold and actually, just quickly back to Pakistan - this is the boy’s father who was showing me a syringe, and while he was digging it out of the pile of rubbish on the floor he pricked the end of his finger. And very interestingly, he whipped out a box of matches, lit one match and burnt the bead of blood that was on the end of his finger, and assured me that that was absolutely safe now and there was no way that he could be infected with HIV. So you can see the misinformation coming into this scene.
And then there’s misuse. Kids are sold syringes, sadly used syringes, on toy stalls in school, and they use them for water pistols. But what you don’t see is that afterwards, because it’s hot, they use these water pistols to squirt into their mouth and they drink the water, and afterwards you can see that the one that’s closest to you is blood stained, there’s all sorts of rubbish in the other one. So it’s just a bizarre, terrible act that is being perpetrated.
Anyway I followed this route through and we got in a car with the toy seller in it. He took us to where he bought his syringes wholesale, and we found these kids turning these syringes over in the sun to dry them, so that they could be ready for sale as toys. They were unprotected; they had to actually remove all the needles before they prepared them. And here you can see them in the display - there’s tanks and cap pistols and all sort or normal plastic toys and then some bunches of syringes.
So the solution is that we need a safer product. Well I came across this problem 25 years ago. I was a young guy. I was actually looking for a problem like this. It was something that had fascinated me for a long time, the intervention in large diseases, and then when I read a newspaper article which said that one day syringes would be a major cause, I knew instantly that that was what I wanted to do.
So I researched the problem including the new innovations that were out there. But I researched the problem from A to Z. I looked at how plastic was refined, how it was molded into syringes, how they were stored, how they were marketed, how they were distributed. And then what happened to them during and after use, and who regulated these. So I studied this for two and a half years and then was able to come up with the design, which I’m just about to show you.
An informed public, obviously that’s what we need, so that they can back off. Funnily enough there’s no way in the areas that I work if I ask a child if they would re-use, or they would use the toothbrush of their neighbour, they jump back in horror. “No way!”, “That’s disgusting!” And yet they’re subject to the medical abuse. And I think that (this is where I spend most of my time), we need to fight for human rights on this subject. It’s not right that a doctor can trick their patient in this way.
The product, it’s very difficult to show you on screen, is a valve that’s molded into the plunger, and then it breaks afterwards, and I think, if I hold this up here, here we go. This is one of my syringes and it works in exactly the same way as a normal syringe. So you do all the complex or simple procedures and you give the injection. Then after use, if someone wants to re-use this, (either accidently or on purpose) and they try and re-use it, it locks and breaks. And this valve is molded into the plunger during the manufacturing process. It’s very, very easy to make this modification; it’s very cheap and my vision is that every single syringe factory in the world should make this, or something like it and then we can end this situation.
Just a personal photograph. This was the first syringe I ever saw used of my design in Cambodia in 2001 and if you remember, I started the journey 25 years ago in 1984 and it took me 17 and a half years to actually sell the first product, which I sold to UNICEF. And then this was part of a UNICEF program, which I was able to witness, and I cried. It was a lovely moment.
They’re made on existing machinery as I mentioned, not that this is going to make, unless your in injection molding, this is a typical nest for making barrels and that’s exactly the same one that we use so we don’t make any major changes. Our product comes out at about 5 cents, depends on different territories, different volumes but that’s the average price, and that’s actually the average price for a normal syringe. So we aim to match the price exactly. You can’t really make a product like this any cheaper. If we could, we would, I promise you.
But just to put it into perspective, it’s one tenth the price of a soft drink. And believe you me, Coca Cola are in Tanzania, they’re in Cambodia, they’re in India for the indigenous population. They’re not there for the tourist trade. So everyone can afford Coca Cola, therefore everyone can afford a safe injection, it’s just they don’t know they have to.
I wanted to, sort of, take you into one particular area that I focused on last year. I was donated a lot of money from a European donor who allowed me to run a dream. And the dream was to go and run a programme in India. The minister there had always refused to see me. And over the last four years, he had point blank just not answered any communication. And yet during that time they had published the study that 62% of all injections given in India were unsafe. So I had to find a new way of, sort of, tackling that and what better than the largest democratic population in the world. What I was able to do was do 11 trips to India doing research and I was able to talk to lots and lots and lots of public, school children and come up with a message that they all agreed was the reduction of the problem and therefore that they could understand it and everyone could understand it - that was simply that a syringe should come in a sealed packet, and you should see it opened in front of you, after use, it should be broken, (it doesn’t have to be one of mine) - you can snap the plunger on any product. And that thirdly, it had to go into a safety box.
Now obviously, you can’t enforce safety boxes in every country, but it’s the goal. We were very kindly joined in our program by this lady, Kiran Bedi. She’s probably the most well known lady in India. Her voice is very well known, as well as her face and she joined us on this campaign and it resulted in a large scale, 5-day blitz across India. We were able to hold 14 press conferences, we were in 240 newspapers, we bought the media with the money that was donated to 10,500 radio announcements and 5,000 TV announcements and this was, maybe, the largest public health campaign in the world, because in 5 days, we were able to inform 700 million people.
Now the key was, that during this newspaper expose, I got most of the newspapers to run the headline “Minister refuses to meet Syringe Guru”, which of course went straight back to head office and he got really annoyed. A couple of weeks later, I was able to return to Delhi, on my own, privately I went to see him and he gave in and passed a law, which came into effect in April 2009. And now with the adoption of that law, it’s growing daily, we’ve got about 40% now of all public hospitals and clinics across India are using auto disable syringes.
And my final bĂȘte noire is the UN. I’m not very well received there, and maybe I just move too fast, or actually do something which hasn’t been researched and written about, so they’re not really my greatest supporters. But never the less, I am now working on UN resolutions in the African union, in the east central and southern African countries, and hopefully one day, in the next couple of years, I would like to have a global resolution for the safety, to protect these people under the banner. Not my banner, or my product, but under the banner that we have developed, which we’ve proposed to the industry - called LifeSaver.
So every syringe gets stamped with this in one colour, and then everyone who uses it knows that it is a quality assurance symbol. 50% of injections are unsafe in the world, as I mentioned. One dollar spent now on safe injections results in a $200 treatment cost, (which is new data) which is just coming out of Tanzania, which is very exciting. Because if we can base this on economy, I think we can move it forward very, very fast.
And just to wrap up, since that 2001, since that first syringe that we sold in Cambodia, we have been able to sell 1.8 billion K1 syringes and that has resulted in about 9 million lives saved - so you can imagine we are very proud.
This is the insanity ladies and gentlemen, and this is what we are trying to stop and I think it comes from safer product, better information and then once we’ve done our job, perhaps the governments will do theirs.
Thank you very much.
.
Marc Koska at DLD10Transcript of a talk given by Marc Koska at DLD10 about the transmission of disease through unsafe injections - and the solution to this problem that he invented:
Steffi: Marc Koska, Marc has a special thing; he is devoted to the humanitarian cause for 20 years. He invented of an AD syringe called K1 - physically prevents re-use, but you tell it better.
Marc: Thank you Steffi. Well I’d really like to thank Steffi and her team for the warm welcome and secondly just to fulfill a promise, to mention Gabriella from HP because I did say that I would do that.
I promise, I make you one promise also before I start that this will be the lowest tech presentation that you see today. Everything else has just been in another level compared to where I operate. So here we go.
My subject is the re-use of syringes. The re-use of syringes kills 1.3 million people by transmitting viruses from one patient to another. It actually results in also 23 million cases of Hepatitis B and you can imagine the cost of treating that on a global scale, and that’s a cumulative number; 23 million cases every single year. Syringes on average are used around 4 times in the developing world and it's just unacceptable, so I decided to do something about it. In fact it kills more people than malaria, which currently kills about 1 million a year.
These three children that I met in an orphanage in Delhi sadly all had HIV and two of them have passed away now. They had HIV because they went and got an injection from a doctor that their parents had taken them to and were supervising. But what was the saddest thing is that all three of these were actually orphaned straight afterwards. Their parents gave them away once they became HIV positive, which is a double tragedy.
Re-use is a problem and this scum bag doctor here in India admitted to me that he had actually re-used this syringe 25 times in one day. This footage here shows you some undercover film that we took in a hospital (again in India) where 40 medicines were delivered; you can see them on the tray in the top corner, and 40 medicines were delivered with two syringes only, to the whole floor of that hospital. And in a minute, you’ll see a nurse return (here she comes) back to the tray, which is their station and drop back the syringe, ready to be used on this next patient. And this is happening on an hourly, minute-by-minute basis across India.
These needles are wet and they're ready to be used again. They are not wet in Europe, they are only wet in the developing world because they’ve been washed downstairs and then bought back up. Patients are often given the choice to pick a needle.
Outside hospitals, we find baths created actually to wash the syringes on a wholesale basis. This is the number of barrels and plungers that were in that bath. If you look closely you can see what’s inside them. This lady was burnt in a dowry burning in Pakistan, and when I talked to her, I asked her why she was back because all her burns were all healed, but still with bad disfigurement. She said she was in the hospital to be treated for Hepatitis B. I asked her where she had contracted it, and ironically (she didn’t see the irony), she contracted it in that very room that we were standing in, taking that photograph. Ten years earlier, being treated for the burns and it was something that has just plagued her life.
This syringe maybe is the world record holder. The ink has come off the barrel and that means that it must have been used over a 100 times. There’s recycling and this is a 6 year-old girl, early in the morning in Islamabad, leaving (in Erdu this says health centre), leaving a health centre with a bag from yesterday's work; there’s blood bags, there’s scalpels, there’s syringes and needles in there, and she’s taking them off to be recycled.
There’s a growing market for plastic. Not necessarily for re-use, but also for washing and recycling back into the market. And while they’re doing this, these kids, they bash into each other and they prick themselves. And I took this photograph and I was so utterly ashamed when one boy poked the other boy with a needle and his hand started bleeding and I felt absolutely devastated that I had caused that by being the white man taking the photograph. He said “no, no don’t worry, it happens 5 times a day.” (which it did).
In China, wholesale recycling again and then re-sorting to be sold and actually, just quickly back to Pakistan - this is the boy’s father who was showing me a syringe, and while he was digging it out of the pile of rubbish on the floor he pricked the end of his finger. And very interestingly, he whipped out a box of matches, lit one match and burnt the bead of blood that was on the end of his finger, and assured me that that was absolutely safe now and there was no way that he could be infected with HIV. So you can see the misinformation coming into this scene.
And then there’s misuse. Kids are sold syringes, sadly used syringes, on toy stalls in school, and they use them for water pistols. But what you don’t see is that afterwards, because it’s hot, they use these water pistols to squirt into their mouth and they drink the water, and afterwards you can see that the one that’s closest to you is blood stained, there’s all sorts of rubbish in the other one. So it’s just a bizarre, terrible act that is being perpetrated.
Anyway I followed this route through and we got in a car with the toy seller in it. He took us to where he bought his syringes wholesale, and we found these kids turning these syringes over in the sun to dry them, so that they could be ready for sale as toys. They were unprotected; they had to actually remove all the needles before they prepared them. And here you can see them in the display - there’s tanks and cap pistols and all sort or normal plastic toys and then some bunches of syringes.
So the solution is that we need a safer product. Well I came across this problem 25 years ago. I was a young guy. I was actually looking for a problem like this. It was something that had fascinated me for a long time, the intervention in large diseases, and then when I read a newspaper article which said that one day syringes would be a major cause, I knew instantly that that was what I wanted to do.
So I researched the problem including the new innovations that were out there. But I researched the problem from A to Z. I looked at how plastic was refined, how it was molded into syringes, how they were stored, how they were marketed, how they were distributed. And then what happened to them during and after use, and who regulated these. So I studied this for two and a half years and then was able to come up with the design, which I’m just about to show you.
An informed public, obviously that’s what we need, so that they can back off. Funnily enough there’s no way in the areas that I work if I ask a child if they would re-use, or they would use the toothbrush of their neighbour, they jump back in horror. “No way!”, “That’s disgusting!” And yet they’re subject to the medical abuse. And I think that (this is where I spend most of my time), we need to fight for human rights on this subject. It’s not right that a doctor can trick their patient in this way.
The product, it’s very difficult to show you on screen, is a valve that’s molded into the plunger, and then it breaks afterwards, and I think, if I hold this up here, here we go. This is one of my syringes and it works in exactly the same way as a normal syringe. So you do all the complex or simple procedures and you give the injection. Then after use, if someone wants to re-use this, (either accidently or on purpose) and they try and re-use it, it locks and breaks. And this valve is molded into the plunger during the manufacturing process. It’s very, very easy to make this modification; it’s very cheap and my vision is that every single syringe factory in the world should make this, or something like it and then we can end this situation.
Just a personal photograph. This was the first syringe I ever saw used of my design in Cambodia in 2001 and if you remember, I started the journey 25 years ago in 1984 and it took me 17 and a half years to actually sell the first product, which I sold to UNICEF. And then this was part of a UNICEF program, which I was able to witness, and I cried. It was a lovely moment.
They’re made on existing machinery as I mentioned, not that this is going to make, unless your in injection molding, this is a typical nest for making barrels and that’s exactly the same one that we use so we don’t make any major changes. Our product comes out at about 5 cents, depends on different territories, different volumes but that’s the average price, and that’s actually the average price for a normal syringe. So we aim to match the price exactly. You can’t really make a product like this any cheaper. If we could, we would, I promise you.
But just to put it into perspective, it’s one tenth the price of a soft drink. And believe you me, Coca Cola are in Tanzania, they’re in Cambodia, they’re in India for the indigenous population. They’re not there for the tourist trade. So everyone can afford Coca Cola, therefore everyone can afford a safe injection, it’s just they don’t know they have to.
I wanted to, sort of, take you into one particular area that I focused on last year. I was donated a lot of money from a European donor who allowed me to run a dream. And the dream was to go and run a programme in India. The minister there had always refused to see me. And over the last four years, he had point blank just not answered any communication. And yet during that time they had published the study that 62% of all injections given in India were unsafe. So I had to find a new way of, sort of, tackling that and what better than the largest democratic population in the world. What I was able to do was do 11 trips to India doing research and I was able to talk to lots and lots and lots of public, school children and come up with a message that they all agreed was the reduction of the problem and therefore that they could understand it and everyone could understand it - that was simply that a syringe should come in a sealed packet, and you should see it opened in front of you, after use, it should be broken, (it doesn’t have to be one of mine) - you can snap the plunger on any product. And that thirdly, it had to go into a safety box.
Now obviously, you can’t enforce safety boxes in every country, but it’s the goal. We were very kindly joined in our program by this lady, Kiran Bedi. She’s probably the most well known lady in India. Her voice is very well known, as well as her face and she joined us on this campaign and it resulted in a large scale, 5-day blitz across India. We were able to hold 14 press conferences, we were in 240 newspapers, we bought the media with the money that was donated to 10,500 radio announcements and 5,000 TV announcements and this was, maybe, the largest public health campaign in the world, because in 5 days, we were able to inform 700 million people.
Now the key was, that during this newspaper expose, I got most of the newspapers to run the headline “Minister refuses to meet Syringe Guru”, which of course went straight back to head office and he got really annoyed. A couple of weeks later, I was able to return to Delhi, on my own, privately I went to see him and he gave in and passed a law, which came into effect in April 2009. And now with the adoption of that law, it’s growing daily, we’ve got about 40% now of all public hospitals and clinics across India are using auto disable syringes.
And my final bĂȘte noire is the UN. I’m not very well received there, and maybe I just move too fast, or actually do something which hasn’t been researched and written about, so they’re not really my greatest supporters. But never the less, I am now working on UN resolutions in the African union, in the east central and southern African countries, and hopefully one day, in the next couple of years, I would like to have a global resolution for the safety, to protect these people under the banner. Not my banner, or my product, but under the banner that we have developed, which we’ve proposed to the industry - called LifeSaver.
So every syringe gets stamped with this in one colour, and then everyone who uses it knows that it is a quality assurance symbol. 50% of injections are unsafe in the world, as I mentioned. One dollar spent now on safe injections results in a $200 treatment cost, (which is new data) which is just coming out of Tanzania, which is very exciting. Because if we can base this on economy, I think we can move it forward very, very fast.
And just to wrap up, since that 2001, since that first syringe that we sold in Cambodia, we have been able to sell 1.8 billion K1 syringes and that has resulted in about 9 million lives saved - so you can imagine we are very proud.
This is the insanity ladies and gentlemen, and this is what we are trying to stop and I think it comes from safer product, better information and then once we’ve done our job, perhaps the governments will do theirs.
Thank you very much.
.
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