HIV FEARS FOR ADDICTS GIVEN USED SYRINGES

HUMAN error was blamed yesterday for a bungle in which dirty syringes
appear to have been distributed to heroin addicts by a Victorian
government-funded needle exchange service.

Health workers are racing to contact seven people believed to have
received the syringes in Melbourne last Friday, exposing them to
potentially fatal infections, including HIV.

A partner in the law firm Slater and Gordon, Nick Styant-Brown, warned
last night that the Victorian Government could be exposed to
"six-figure" damages if any of the recipients became ill.

Health officials said a box of syringes, some of them used, had been
returned by a client to the Ken's Bus mobile needle exchange service
in Dandenong and there was concern they were redistributed on Friday
night.

No other details have been provided.

It is understood, however, that this is the first time a needle
exchange service in Australia has been compromised.

Southern Health Care Network head Judith Dwyer yesterday warned
clients of the exchange program not to use unsealed syringes.

"We have examined the circumstances of this incident and acknowledge
that it was a result of human error," Ms Dwyer said.

The most recent Department of Human Services statistics on needle
exchange programs in Victoria reveal that about 3 million syringes
were distributed in 1997.

Victoria's busiest needle exchange, in St Kilda, hands out up to
60,000 needles a month.

A worker at a Melbourne needle exchange program said yesterday that
returned needles and syringes were never touched by drug workers, but
were deposited by users in bins supplied by the service, in accordance
with Department of Human Services policy.

Even if unused syringes were returned, they had to be placed in safe
bins and incinerated, the worker said.

A spokeswoman for Victorian Health Minister Rob Knowles said "human
error always happens" but the Minister was pleased the Southern Health
Care Network had acted quickly to issue a public health warning about
the needles.

However, Mr Styant-Brown said the duty of care owed by a health
provider in these circumstances was extremely high.

All parties, from the worker who handed out the syringes to the
Victorian Government, were potentially liable, he said.

Opposition health spokesman John Thwaites said information as to why
the incident occurred should be released to ensure it did not happen
again.

The director of the Centre for Harm Reduction at the Macfarlane
Burnett Centre, Nick Crofts, said needle exchange programs were a
"public health triumph".

He said the greatest risk from sharing needles was contracting
Hepatitis C, which was carried by about 65 per cent of injecting drug
users in Australia.

Infection rates of HIV and Hepatitis B were less than 2 per cent among
the drug-injecting population, Dr Crofts said.