SafePoint launches campaign with Kiran Bedi
15 Nov 2008
Marc Koska OBE, (the British inventor of the single-use auto-disable syringe), together with his charity SafePoint UK, is embarking upon a one-week life-saving healthcare education mission to India on an enormous and unprecedented scale, starting 14 November 2008.
According to a recent study by Indian Clinical Epidemiology Network (IndiaCLEN), around 65 per cent of injections administered in India are unsafe - because they are performed with reused or unsterile equipment.
Marc set up SafePoint Trust in 2006 to educate the public on the dangers of re-using syringes with its ''One Injection, One Syringe'' message, in order to reduce the misery, illness and deaths being needlessly caused through unsafe injections.
On 14 November 2008, Marc led a SafePoint team to India with the aim of informing hundreds of millions throughout that country of the fatal consequences of re-using syringes, by means of the SafePoint-produced public information film (or public service announcement) called 'Sachin'. This is the moving story, narrated by Dr Kiran Bedi, the highly celebrated Indian social activist, about Sachin - the little boy who contracts HIV through the reuse of a syringe by his doctor. The film leaves no doubt that prevention is better than cure.
SafePoint claims that it will be the biggest media buyer throughout India for that week (14-21 November 2008).
In addition, the SafePoint team, split into four groups, will hold concurrent press conferences in Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Chandigarh. In total, the teams will cover 14 regions over a gruelling four days.