A DUBLIN boy may be at risk from HIV infection after being pierced by a discarded needle.
Three year old John Cooney was playing with friends near his home at Railway Street, in Dublin's north inner city, last Friday when he was pricked in the arm by the needle. He was treated in hospital and tested for possible infection but the results will not be known for six months.
Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin declined to comment on the case and would not confirm if it treated John Cooney.
His uncle, Mr John Cooney, told RTE's Morning Ireland yesterday that the family was concerned at the possibility of HIV infection. "You'd have to be with the percentage of people who use these things," he said. "If it's not that it could be hepatitis B or C or whatever."
The risk of contracting some kind of infection, such as HIV or hepatitis, from a discarded needle is low but it is greater if the needle has been used by intravenous drug users.
Up to March of this year, 1,645 people in Ireland had tested positive for HIV antibodies since testing began in 1986. The injecting of drugs is the main cause, accounting for 52 per cent of cases.
The HIV virus can only survive for a limited time outside the body. "The virus isn't very viable for long," said Dr Kingston Mills, a lecturer in immunology at St Patrick's College, Maynooth. "If it's been outside the body for more than a day or two the chances are the virus is no longer viable. There's a declining risk but you can never say there's no risk."
The risk of hepatitis infection is greater, particularly from hepatitis which can survive outside the body for 72 hours. "If you've got a needle stick injection with blood in the barrel of the needle, the chance of picking up HIV is one in 300, the chance of picking up hepatitis C is one in 30 to one in 300, and the chance of picking up hepatitis B is one in 30 so it's quite high", said Dr Fiona Mulcahy, of St James's Hospital, Dublin.
Dr Gerard Sheehan, consultant physician in infectious diseases to Dublin's Mater and Beaumont Hospitals, said the possibility of hepatitis B infection could be as much as one in three if the needle's user was infected, although only 1 or 2 per cent of Dublin's drug users are believed to be infected. He called for a universal vaccination against hepatitis B, or at least vaccinations for those at risk of infection.
Hepatitis C is more prevalent, with around 85 per cent or more of drug, users, hepatitis C positive.
Hepatitis B is more infectious than either HIV or hepatitis C. It is most commonly transmitted by direct contact between a person's bloodstream and infected blood, although a small number of cases (fewer than 5 per cent) have been sexually transmitted. In most cases, hepatitis B will run its' course with fewer than 5 per cent of cases developing liver disease. Unlike hepatitis C, there is a product available to counter it.