Plans to give inmates at the ACT's new prison bleach to clean needles might be useless against the threat of hepatitis C, the director of ACT Corrections Health says.
Associate Professor Michael Levy said yesterday that hepatitis C was the biggest health problem facing Australian prisons.
It was naive to think it would be possible to stop the smuggling of drugs and syringes into the Alexander Maconochie Centre when it opened in eight weeks. A needle-exchange program in the new prison was necessary to reduce the spread of hepatitis C.
''We can be as tough in words as we want, but in the end if the virus gets transmitted to uninfected people, that brings into question the tough words,'' Professor Levy said yesterday, after speaking at the Australian Institute of Criminology.
''The [hepatitis C] virus doesn't understand tough words. The virus understands its mode of transmission, and that's blood-to-blood. And while the circumstance exists for blood-to-blood transfer to occur in a population that's already hyper-infected, then the few people who are not infected run a huge risk of becoming so.''
There were doubts the bleach solution that would be provided to inmates in lieu of a needle-exchange program would kill the hepatitis C virus, which was most commonly spread by contaminated syringes.
The same bleach program is currently used in the territory's remand centres, which will close when the Alexander Maconochie Centre opens.
''[Bleach] certainly works for HIV, but there's less confidence around other viruses, including hepatitis C. It's not a proven strategy against hepatitis C,'' Professor Levy said.
''Contaminated needles are the main form of [hepatitis C] infection. The only other ones that comes near it are body piercing and tattooing.''
A 2001 study into NSW prisoner health found 64 per cent of women and 40 per cent of men in prison reported having hepatitis C, while 84 per cent of women and 80 per cent of men in prison reported using illicit drugs.
Professor Levy said we could expect infection rates to be comparable in the ACT when the new prison received the territory's sentenced prisoners currently serving time in NSW.
''We don't know the rates of infection in ACT, all we can do is rely on NSW data. Given that the ACT prisoners have been in NSW, it's a fair extrapolation.''
The ACT Government has said it will review the needle-exchange proposal after 12 to 18 months of the prison opening.
If implemented, the ACT would become the first Australian jurisdiction to have such a program.
However, the Community and Public Sector Union, which represents the territory's corrections officers, is opposed to a needle exchange.
The union's ACT regional director, Vince McDevitt, said last week its members were tasked with preventing illegal substances from being smuggled into the jail.
''A move towards a needle exchange seems to be based on an acceptance there will be illegal substances in the jail,'' Mr McDevitt said.''The second thing is the occupational health and safety risks associated with a hypodermic in itself, which could be quite a nasty weapon.
''Clearly it's not in anyone's interest to have drug-affected prisoners walking around with hypodermic needles.''
Email a friend