Diabetes alert issued concerning Alco-Prep swabs

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has made a warning about safety issues for Alco-Prep pre-injection cleansing swabs, with some products being recalled from the market, and people are advised not to use the affected products.
The alert, which has been widely distributed to healthcare professionals around the UK, is focused on Alco-Prep alcohol skin preparation swabs, pads and swabsticks manufactured by H&W cv, which it is feared may have bacterial contamination that could lead to skin infection .
H&W cv were making these products between September 2007 and April 2010, which are also provided with drug administration kits and needle exchange packs by Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK, MSD/(Schering Plough) and Frontier Medical Group.
However, the MHRA has pointed out that the product recall only affects the alcohol swabs and not the medicines or other components of the drug administration kits or needle exchange packs.
The batches that were affected have lot numbers starting with a ‘7’ and going up to and including those starting with ‘0D’, the date of manufacture, with the numbers being located on each alcohol pad pouch.