Nairobi was the location for a ground-breaking regional summit last week. On October 30th experts from five of the ten member states of the East, Central and Southern African (ECSA) Health Community gathered to move forward a unique collaborative Resolution on injection safety. With technical experts from the PEPFAR-funded Making Medical Injections Safer (MMIS) programme, the World Health Organisation, the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), safe injection awareness charity SafePoint, and hosted by the ECSA Secretariat, country representatives worked collaboratively and creatively to share best practice on injection safety policy and bring all member states up to the same pitch.

The Resolution being enacted was signed into life by Health Ministers of ten African states - Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Swaziland, Mauritius, Seychelles, Zimbabwe and Lesotho - at their annual ECSA meeting in March this year and called for immediate action to address injection safety on a comprehensive and collaborative platform. The resolution calls for the issue to be addressed holistically, treating injection safety as a foundation for the health system. Full quantities of safe injection devices, healthcare worker training on how to use them, disposal, and public information were all encompassed, drawn together in what is known as the Smart Injection Programme.

"We are immensely proud to be part of this regional initiative" said Laura Baker, SafePoint volunteer. "Since national policy on injection safety has already been established in many of the ECSA member states, we were able to move far further forward in our agenda, and consider next steps, including carrying out baseline surveys and current assessments of injection practices, as well as some concrete next steps on implementation."

ECSA took the clear lead in leading the group towards greater action and effective co-operation and agreed to co-ordinate further action, including pooling requests for assistance with assessments. "There is an obvious need for injection safety to be prioritised and this is a great example of how ECSA countries can work together" said Helen Lugina, representing the Secretariat.

"We have learnt a lot from each other" exclaimed Susan Otieno, Deputy Chief Nursing Officer at the Ministry of Health in Kenya. "In Kenya we launched our national policy last month, and one of the key factors in our success has been using effective, collaborative taskforces". Dr Amandua Jacinto, Clinical Commissioner from Uganda, reinforced the same. "We must work together and push this forward, now. We welcome discovering best practice from other countries, and are happy to share our success stories with our brothers and sisters. This problem can be solved and we are the people that can make it happen." Dr Ann Phoya contributed an excellent presentation on the safe injection project in Malawi, a country that does not benefit from a PEPFAR-funded MMIS project. "We have switched all public procurement to safety or auto disable syringes" she declared. "It is the best thing for the patients. We need help now with promoting public awareness of the issue". Dr Chris Mazimba, Chief of Party of the Medical Injection Safety Project in Zambia, presented the practical progress that has been made in his country but highlighted the need for sustained and active political support. "Injection safety is a very cost effective and impactful intervention" he explained "but we still need to compete for political attention and priority. But injection safety is a foundation to all our other health programmes so we must get this right first." Mrs Kissa Mwamwitwa, presenting progress in Tanzania, echoed the same sentiments. "We are committed to helping ECSA meet the Resolution created in March through our contribution. We are looking forward to the next steps now, where we can all declare national policy, based on best practice between all us member states, and then a common platform for further implementation. We are all of course working on our own national programmes, but there is a lot that we can share and use from each other. We have learnt a great deal from our colleagues today."

SafePoint has committed to creating a short public awareness presentation for the countries in the ECSA region, designed for repeated showing on TV and radio. "We can raise funding to produce a film in each country or area and we will work with all our colleagues here to make sure that the products are the most relevant to the target populations - patients, all people. We want to create an impact that will really change behaviour and the public's approach to receiving an injection" explained Marc Koska OBE, founder of SafePoint. "We need first and foremost to reduce the number of injections demanded and prescribed. And then we need to make our three-step message, the World Health Organisation message, become folklore in every household, so every child and every mother knows it intrinsically, and without doubt - when you go to the doctor, you need to see the syringe comes from a new packet, see that it is used once on you and then disabled, and then see it put away in a safety box or container and not used again. It is a simple message but one that will save thousands of lives every week if it can be spread to all". Marc added "we are gathering a great team of volunteers to make the films. But we will need help in distributing it across the countries. This is where donations or sponsors can help. It is such a simple thing but this media can really change lives, even of a whole region. This is part of a comprehensive and planned programme - a safe injection package called the Smart Injection Programme that will eradicate this transmission route for disease forever."

For more information and to see the film SafePoint made in India go to www.safepointfilms.org