The government on Friday informed the Rajya Sabha that 69 per cent of injections administered at government hospitals are unsafe.

Quoting the draft report of a study funded by the World Bank, Minister of Health A Ramadoss said during Question Hour that 35 per cent of injections given at GHs were unsafe because of improper sterilization. Another 34 per cent were unsafe because of wrong procedure adopted by those administering injections, he said.

"In order to reduce unsafe injections, the government has taken a decision to introduce auto-disable syringes in all immunisation clinics and Central government hospitals from 2005," he said.

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Auto-disable syringes can be used only once and, hence, are safer than the disposable ones, which can be reused, Ramadoss said.

The minister said as per a study conducted by the Clinical Epidemiology Unit of the All India Institute of Medical Science, 74.5 per cent of injections were administered by using plastic syringes and the rest with glass syringes, which were more likely to be unsafe.

Noting that the matter was very serious, Rajya Sabha Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat directed the minister to take up the issue at the highest level.