How Can You Prevent Infection During an Injection?

How Can You Prevent Infection During an Injection? Infections can happen during an injection and it’s a big deal.

An infection occurs when bad bacteria, viruses, or other germs get into your body through the injection site.

This can be due to the person giving the injection or the tools used.

Health professionals like doctors, nurses, or pharmacists are trained to give injections safely.

But if the person giving the injection isn’t properly trained or doesn’t follow hygiene practices, there’s a higher risk of infection.

Using unsterilized needles, not cleaning the area on your skin where you’ll be injected, or touching the needle can introduce germs into your body.

Some injections like vaccines, IV medications, or injections into your muscles require proper handling but it doesn’t always depend on the type of injection.

What matters most is if the procedure is done correctly.

An untreated injection-related infection can lead to serious complications like abscesses (painful pus-filled lumps), bloodstream infections (sepsis), or tissue damage around the injection site.

In extreme cases, these can be life-threatening.

It’s important to know that getting an infection isn’t always your fault.

It’s mostly due to mistakes or poor hygiene practices of the person giving the injection.

Let’s now talk about safe injections, safe injection techniques, and what happens when safe injections are not given below so you can understand better.

Disclaimer Notice: This content goes through a review by the CEO of pharmafoodhealth.com – a professional medical lab scientist before publication.

How Can You Prevent Infection During an Injection?

1. Safe Injection Practices are Key

Before we get into how to avoid infections during injections, first we need to practice safe injection.

Safe injection principles mean a number of things that we need to put in place to minimize the risks of injections.

The most important rule to remember is: “One needle, one syringe, one use.” This means one needle and one syringe for one person, then dispose of it safely.

Sharing needles or syringes can transmit deadly diseases like hepatitis B and hepatitis C and Human Immunodeficiency Virus – HIV.

When giving shots, healthcare providers need to follow different procedures from others.

Proper aseptic procedures including needles syringes and medications are cleaned before use and disposed of after use.

New needles and syringes for new patients; using sterile vials will keep everyone safe.

If the same needle is used or more than one person is drawn from the same medication vial it’s very easy for germs and viruses to spread and outbreaks will occur.

Following these basic rules above minimizes the chance of getting infected.

2. Always Use Aseptic Technique

Aseptic technique means practices used to minimize contact with germs when giving an injection or preparing for it. This is very important in avoiding infection during injection.

The first step in using the aseptic technique is to wash your hands.

Before touching any injection-related item, a health care provider must wear gloves and wash his/her hands.

This minimizes the chance of transmitting unwanted germs from their hands to either the needle, syringe, or the patient.

Then the skin circle around the target area should be wiped with alcohol or antiseptic solution to disinfect the area and kill bacteria on the outer layer of the skin.

The needle and syringe must be sterile before using in handling any substance, liquid or otherwise.

Not using a sterile needle or not cleaning the skin around the injection site properly may result to bacterial or viral diseases.

But again, we can never overemphasize cleanliness as it minimizes contact with pathogens.

3. Use Single-Dose Vials Whenever Possible

To minimize the risk of getting infected through injections, healthcare workers should always use a separate dose vial instead of a multiple dose vial.

Each of those vials is a single-dose vial, that is, it has enough medication for one patient.

When used, they should only be opened once and used for one patient only before disposing.

This will rule out the possibility of germs being transmitted from one person to another through the reused medication.

On the other hand, multiple-dose vial refers to vials that have enough drug to be used by more than one patient.

What’s more, these vials are very fragile and if mishandled, they spread infection.

If a healthcare worker for example drops a used needle or syringe into the vial, the medication will be contaminated with all sorts of harmful germs which will be transferred to another patient.

This minimizes the chance of this happening and keeps it safer by using single-dose vials.

4. Never Reuse Syringes or Needles

The infection control measures continue with the following; never reuse syringes or needles in injections.

Any syringe or needle that has been used in one patient should be disposed of in the same place, immediately.

Several HCWs may use the same needle with an argument that the needle is replaced with another after attending to other patients but this is wrong.

Needles used in one patient and then switched to another are still capable of transmitting germs from one patient to another.

A survey among healthcare workers showed that some of them use the same needle or syringe for several patients.

This is a big problem because these needles can be contaminated with viruses and bacteria and can be transmitted through the bloodstream.

Here is a very common instance, if a hospital only requires a different syringe and new needle for each patient, then transmission of the disease can be prevented.

5. Disposal of Needles and Syringes

After an injection has been administered the needle and syringe must be disposed of.

This means disposing them into containers that are meant for this kind of waste in our case used needles and syringes.

Needles in regular trash can harm everyone; they can prick anyone and spread diseases.

Proper disposal makes everyone safe including the health care providers and users.

Sharp containers are also strong and will not be destructible since the used needles and other sharp items are put in a closed container.

Any health facility must always have enough of these containers and never find itself with used needles scattered around.

To avoid getting infected after an injection, proper disposal is an effective mechanism that no one will think of.

6. Special Precautions for Spinal Injections

Some injections such as spinal injections need extra precautions.

In such techniques as lumbar punctures or spinal anesthesia, there are additional measures to be taken to prevent infection.

One of these procedures is wearing a surgical mask.

A mask is useful in preventing any form of aerosols from the mouth or nose to reach a clean area where an injection is being administered.

This is especially true for spinal operations because any bacteria that gets into the spinal area may lead to meningitis.

Along with the mask, other universal precautions for injections are then implemented: the same needle and syringe must never be used for more than one person, and only medications from single-dose vials may be used.

The authors therefore recommend the following additional preventive measures that will help to reduce the risk of infection despite the invasive nature of spinal injections.

Why Safe Injection Practices Matter

1. Serious Health Risks from Unsafe Injections

This is important because if the right precautions are not taken there are serious health complications that can occur as we have seen with injections.

Infections from unsafe injections can lead to long-term health complications like the spread of diseases like hepatitis and HIV.

These diseases can be chronic and the patient will spend a lot of money on treatment and managing the condition.

Yes, these infections can even cause death if not well managed.

Patients are also at risk not only for catastrophic disease processes but also develop complications beyond the injection site including deep tissue infection or sepsis.

The effects of injection injuries include; infection at the injection site.

If a non-sterile needle or syringe is used, bacteria or other pathogens can get under the skin.

It can lead to things like abscesses – basically swollen pockets of pus which are very painful – or cellulitis which is a ‘bacterial infection that spreads to the skin’.

These infections as some people initially think are not severe; rather they can propagate and require more invasive treatment like puncturing or antibiotics.

Sometimes injection site infections that are not treated can go deeper into the body and cause serious problems.

The infection can spread to the arteries and cause sepsis which is the body’s extreme response to an infection and can affect major organs in the body.

Sepsis is another infection that causes high mortality due to infections that develop in healthcare facilities.

2. Hepatitis, HIV, and other diseases

Unsafe injections also spread blood-borne diseases like hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV and others.

These viruses are mostly spread through contaminated needles and syringes used during injections.

An instance is when healthcare workers reuse needles or syringes, blood from one patient can be passed on to the other.

This is even worse when administering substances with blood circulation since the viruses can easily penetrate the new host and start to multiply.

Hepatitis and HIV are both chronic diseases meaning the patient will live with the disease for the rest of their life and will need medical management for the rest of their life.

If a patient gets one of these viruses from unsafe injections he/she will suffer from liver problems, low immunity, and other infections.

These can be fatal in extreme cases so health care professionals should prevent the spread of illnesses at all costs.

3. Viral and bacterial infections in healthcare settings

Poor injection technique has led to recurrent outbreaks of viral and bacterial diseases in facilities.

These outbreaks are a result of healthcare practitioners not following cultures such as the safe use of needles and syringes or the handling of medication.

Reusing needles or using a medication vial for one patient and then for another is likely to result in cross-contamination.

This leads to pockets of infection because pathogens from one patient are directly transmitted to another.

All these could have been avoided if injection procedures were done correctly.

Healthcare providers should not share needles and should wear gloves, gowns, masks, and goggles; needles should be disposed of after use; handling of medication should also be done correctly.

So prevention of injection adverse effects is important for individual patients’ health and hospital safety.

Conclusion

Also, patient’s responsibility is to avoid getting infected when getting an injection.

This is on safe injection practices which include using a separate needle and syringe for each patient, shuttling the practice in a sterile manner, and using only single-dose vials.

As observed and learned, if proper training is done, proper equipment is used, and primary adherence to safety measures the injections can be done as badly as possible.

If everyone in the health care facilities follows these, infection spread is decreased and both patients and health care providers will be safe.

These practices are good to be known by patients and healthcare workers and most of the time the patient’s safety comes first.

Don’t forget to check some other helpful health content on our blog for more.

REFERENCES:

• https://www.cdc.gov/injection-safety/hcp/clinical-guidance/index.html
• https://www.who.int/teams/integrated-health-services/infection-prevention-control/injection-safety
• https://depts.washington.edu/edgh/app-ipc/web/injection_safety.html