Bloodborne HIV: Don't Get Stuck!

One of the things that prompted my recent post about Implanon birth control implant was a remark in Wikipedia, which links to an article about an alert relating to the product in the UK. Hundreds of women became pregnant while using the product, which is bad enough when the point is to avoid pregnancy.

But if you’re in a country where the safety of health facilities cannot be guaranteed (according to UNAIDS), you might have far greater cause to worry about improper insertion, or any kind of insertion at all, if it involved possible contact with contaminated medical equipment.

The Reuters press release points out that a relatively small number of women became pregnant, but what about the worry that the implant might take place in health facilities with insufficient equipment and supplies, hardly any trained personnel and lax infection control procedures (if any)? After all, another 1,607 women complained of “adverse reactions such as scarring and other problems”.

In the UK, Implanon has been replaced by Nexplanon, but it seems Pathfinder will not be using that and Implanon has not been taken off the market. It will continue to be administered until stocks run out, apparently. So that’s OK, then.