Unhygienic alcoblow needlessly exposing Kenyans to diseases

I have been following the debate on alcoblow and the reaction the gadget has elicited from the public. Drunken driving is a major contributing factor to deaths on our roads and it is important to prevent this. Making it illegal to drive beyond a certain allowable level of blood alcohol is a positive measure.

Last week there was a court case about the legality of the alcohol detector. I have observed the use of the gadget and realised it can be a good vehicle for transmitting communicable diseases such as tuberculosis and hepatitis.

I am not sure Kebs went through the proper tests to ensure the gadget, meant to be shared by many people, was hygienic.

I have observed how the police and the public are handling the item and shudder at the thought of what people may be unknowingly sharing.

My analogy of the way the gadget is being used is that of using the same syringe when injecting people but only changing the injection needle. When clinicians give an injection to a patient, they discard both the needle and the syringe. Contamination occurs to both items.

There are two ways you could prevent such contamination — by getting rid of both the needle and the syringe or by sterilising them both.

Use of any part of needle and syringe without sterilisation is unethical. When you use the same syringe but only change the needle, there are high chances of contaminant backflow from the syringe.

The same happens when you keep on changing the mouthpiece and not sterilising the whole gadget. Human breath is a good source of droplets that carry many communicable diseases.

All mouth pieces should be sterile and should have a valve to prevent backflow. The other alternative is to have a disposable microbial filter at the point where the mouthpiece is attached to the breathalyser.

Disposable mouthpieces

The alcoblow accumulates moisture from the mouth after a person blows into it. When the next person blows, there is a high chance of that some of the air backflows into the blowers’ mouth. This air will be carrying droplets from the previous blower’s mouth and chances of getting infected if the alcoblow has not been sterilised before the next user.

The most convenient method of sterilisation would be by fixing disposable microbial filters after every use. The other is to have disposable mouthpieces that have no return valves to prevent people sharing droplets from their breath. Another alternative is to have a new alcoblow for each person being tested.

While alcoblow is supposed to curb drunken driving, it is also exposing many people to the risk of contracting disease. Worse still, everyone is being subjected to blow into the gadget irrespective of whether they have taken alcohol or not.

It is not fair to inconvenience every road user by creating roadblocks and subjecting innocent people to risky tests. It is like immunising the population against a deadly disease using the same needle. That is creating the “devils alternative.” Let us not solve one problem by creating another.

Intelligence also should be applied to curb drunken driving and not subject majority of non-drinkers to unnecessary exposure to communicable diseases.

The police should be capable of detecting when and where to get the drunk drivers without a lot of drama.

I also suggest the involvement of our scientists on hygienic use of the gadget because the inventors may not be coming from regions with endemic communicable diseases like Africa.

We are courting disaster unless this wonder machine is foolproof against contamination.

Mr Kinuthia is a an epidemiologist. [email protected]