ID CHIPS COULD HELP FIND NEEDLES

UVic students hope invention will make city cleanup safer for workers

Tiny radio-frequency ID chips embedded in syringes could make life
safer for city workers and cleanup teams who daily scour Victoria's
streets looking for discarded needles.

The tag, which could be attached to a 20-cent syringe for an extra
five cents, is similar to a grocery bar code.

People collecting needles or city parks crews would carry an RFID
reader that starts beeping about a metre away from a needle, said
student Mustafa Ahmed, part of a team of University of Victoria MBA
students that came up with the idea.

The team, which also includes Robert Kania, Graham Moxon, Yamile
Saleh and Julian Subda, hopes the idea will be picked up by
needle-distribution organizations.

"We started to notice a lot of used needles in Victoria just lying
around," said Ahmed. "It's a huge problem, especially when you have
little kids and other people being exposed in places like parks and
baseball fields." The cost would be a fraction of the expense of
treating people with accidental needle jabs and would help eliminate
the worry about potential infection, Ahmed said.

The next steps are feasibility and business plans and getting
information about RFID-equipped syringes to decision-makers, he said.

"The manufacturing part is quite easy, but it needs some strong
backup. It is something which would have to have government support."
The NeedleSight project won the people's choice award in the
university's information technology trade show this year.

The task set for MBA teams was to come up with an idea using
technology in an innovative way for the greater good of the community.

David Speed, City of Victoria assistant director of parks, said about
four staff have received needle punctures over the last 12 years and,
although none have become infected, it is a concern.

Gardening gloves are not thick enough to prevent punctures and at
least two of the jabs have been in legs, from needles poking out of
garbage bags, he said.

The RFID tag would be useful, as long as the reader was small enough
to fit into something like a gardening glove, Speed said.

"It would have to be part of the regular safety gear that people use
on a regular basis." However, RFID syringes raise questions about the
privacy of needle users, says Andrea Langlois of AIDS Vancouver Island.

Confidentiality is key when people obtain needles, she said.

"Users might not take our needles because someone might be able to
track where they are dealing and using. I would have concerns about
that," she said.

Also, the risk of infection from a discarded-needle jab is extremely
low, Langlois said.

"There has never been one case [in B.C.] of HIV or Hep C infection
from people being pricked by a needle on the street." That means the
cost benefit would have to be carefully analyzed, Langlois said. "But
anything we can do to recover needles safely is a good idea. One
needle on the street is one too many." Harm-reduction specialist Dr.
Jane Buxton of the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, which distributes
syringes to organizations such as AVI, said given the millions of
needles that are distributed each year, the focus should be on 100
per cent safe disposal, rather than radio frequency chips.