UVelona

UVelona Project 

Description of Problem: 

In the United States, around 405,000 people currently reuse needles for injecting intravenous drugs while more than 3.5 million people have reused needles to inject IV drugs (Centers for Disease Control and Ropelewski, 2011). Needle reuse among people who inject drugs likely occurs because of 1) a lack of access to new needles, 2) the cost-effectiveness of using a single needle for multiple injections, and 3) to limit needle waste. These motivations to reuse needles have persisted despite very high risks associated with needle reuse: shared routes of transmission result in 50-70% and 50-80% of needle users being infected with Hepatitis B (HBV) and Hepatitis C (HCV), respectively (Ropelewski et al., 2012). In addition, people who inject drugs are at triple the risk for staphylococcus infections and needle reuse accounts for 36% of all Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) cases. Roughly one in ten new Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) cases – the virus that leads to the development of AIDS – are attributed to intravenous drug use as a whole. Needle reuse is a persistent, pervasive, and dangerous problem among self-injectors; the major health implications associated with needle reuse must be addressed. 

Description of Project: 

UVelona is a novel device to disinfect needles and detect deformations to help reduce harm to intravenous drug-users. The device is safe as it will protect the user from the UV lights, legal, and easy to use. 

Unfortunately, stigma towards intravenous drug use has been shown to be a major contributor to healthcare disparities resulting from socioeconomic and structural barriers that are consequences of drug use. Due to the stigma, many people who use intravenous drugs are faced with discrimination, criminalization, unstable housing, and are even unable to afford healthcare (“They look at us like Junkies”). Therefore, by having an unassuming exterior, this product will hopefully evade the stigma associated with the use of intravenous drugs. 

Description of Technology: 

The design includes two main features– the UV-C lights for disinfection of the syringe and needle and the LiDAR distance sensor that can be used to detect bending and other deformities in the needle to make sure that it really is safe to reuse – as well as a variety of other electronics and features to make it easier and safer for the user. 

The device has two buttons on the front; one to turn on the LiDAR sensor to check the needle for bending, and one to turn on the UV lights. When someone turns on the LiDAR, it will then take eight (8) readings, take the average of those readings, and, if the needle is bent beyond the safe value (11.3º), then a red warning light will turn on to alert the user that the needle is not safe to use. If the LiDAR sensor determines that the needle is safe to use, then a green light will turn on, alerting the user to this. 

When the UV lights are turned on, they are set on a timer so that they will turn off automatically after 20 minutes (the number that we determined was the ideal amount of time for the syringe and needle to be disinfected through microbiology testing). While the UV light is turned on, a purple LED on the front of the box also turns on to let the user know that the UV light is on and the box should remain closed. When the 20 minutes is over and the UV lights turn off, then a blue light on the box turns on to tell the user that the disinfection is complete. In addition to this, there is also a safety measure on the box to make sure that the UV lights only turn on when the box is closed, thus making sure that the user is not exposed to any potentially harmful UV radiation. 

Figure 1: UVelona Prototype:. The drawing (top left) shows the various buttons and lights on the design, while the SolidWorks model (top right) shows the structural aspect of it. The bottom two pictures show the prototype itself after 3D printing and with all the electronics attached.

Figure 2: The diagram of the complete circuit used in the UVelona prototype, including the relay, battery, LiDAR sensor, and lights.

DHE Involvement and Future Technological Improvements: 

Moving forward with this project, there are a couple of things that we think we should look into more or improve about the device itself. 

1. Expand our user base beyond people who use intravenous drugs recreationally.
   • Needle reuse is a major problem for all people who use needles to inject drugs, both medically and recreationally. 
   • One of the major groups of people with whom we would want to work is the diabetic community, as needle reuse for injecting insulin is also extremely common, with around 50% of all insulin users reusing their needles (Coninck, 2010). 
   • We would also want to look more into how this device could help people with autoimmune disorders who also use needles to inject medicine and other drugs, and more broadly everyone who lacks needle and syringe access.

2. Concentrate UV-C light to reliably disinfect the inside of the needle and syringe 
   • Explore the use of fiber optics to disinfect the needle
   • Use Bilirubin to see where the UV-C light is escaping 

3. Creating an optimized battery-powered circuit so the device is less bulky. 
   • Our discussions showed that this could be a major asset for our user base as many people who use intravenous drugs are also houseless and don’t have access to a reliable supply of electricity. 

4. Study the exact materials that we are using in the device.
   • For example, we want to use a mylar covering on the inside of the box as we found our best results with the UV lights while using mylar, but we still don’t understand how exactly it could help with this process.

5. Improve the deformity sensor (LiDAR)
   • Currently, it can only detect one direction of bending and deformation in the needle. In the future, we would like to expand this sensing range so that the LiDAR could measure bending in any direction.
   • One idea for how this might work is that we could design a ring of LiDAR sensors that would extend out over the needle when the button is pressed, take its readings, and then retract again.

6. Design Considerations 
   • We would want to make sure that any printed instructions we supply with the device are extremely simple and easy to read, as dense instructional material often is just discarded or not even read at all.
   • We also would like to include tactile buttons for turning on the LiDAR sensor and UV lights in order to help people who might be visually impaired use the device.
   • We also would want to consider in greater depth the weight of the device, as it would likely be carried around quite frequently by users.

Any questions or want to get involved? Reach out to our project managers and let us know!

Project Managers: Yowis Arias, Kevin Hogan, Aksheta Kanuganti, Joel Smith 

Email: yowis.arias.24@dartmouth.edu, kevin.a.hogan.24@dartmouth.edu, aksheta.s.kanuganti.24@dartmouth.edu, joel.a.smith.24@dartmouth.edu