January 28, 2008 - Medical Safety Technologies Inc. (MST) today introduced its new Turtle SafeShot Safety Syringe, a passive, self-sheathing syringe never exposing the needle during the entire injection process.
Unlike other solutions currently available on the market today, the Turtle is the only completely passive syringe, meaning that it works automatically. It utilizes a proprietary design to ensure that the needle is never exposed from the moment the syringe is taken from its original packaging, through the injection process and finally to sanitary disposal. The syringe’s patented design includes a hard, shatter-resistant and unbreakable sheath on the outside of the needle, which stays intact. A spring-loaded mechanism keeps the sheath constantly against the medication source or patient, in such a way that the needle is never exposed to the user. It is currently available in 3cc size.
In proportion to the growing number of contaminated needle stick accidents, the number of cases of infection conveyance from these exposures continues to explode as well. The World Health Organization reports that there are eight to 12 billion injections given each year, over half of which are unsafe. As a result, this has caused more than eight million new Hepatitis B cases, two million new Hepatitis C cases, and 80,000 new HIV cases, annually. These numbers may be much higher, as many cases of contaminated needle sticks go unreported.
The company also has a patent pending on a new version, which will include a feature to permanently disable the syringe after one injection.
For more information: www.medicalsafetytechnologies.com.