STEPS TO PREVENT INFECTION:
- Wash your hands with soap and water before and after injecting
- Use new needles and syringes for every injection
- Use new alcohol swabs to clean spoons and injection sites, wiping in one direction only. Use a new swab to clean each surface
- If reusing equipment, reuse your own needles. Do not share!
- Do not draw up from the same pot of water as other users
- Do not lend or borrow any injecting equipment including syringes, needles, spoons, filters, swabs, tourniquets or cups of water
- Do not frontload, backload, flush out, or skin pop
- Have your own space for injecting and use only your own equipment
- Clean up blood from floors and work surfaces with a one part bleach to nine parts water solution (1:9). Household bleach (5 per cent) that is non-scented should be used
- Carefully clean cuts and wounds and cover with a waterproof dressing-for example, waterproof bandages
- Dispose of used needles, syringes and other equipment safely in a sharps container made for this purpose
- Take your sharps container to a designated place for safe disposal when it's ¾ full.
Adapted from Injecting Drug Use from the British Liver Trust Information Service
