Recognising injuries related to needlestick injury in farmers: the importance of identifying high‐pressure injections with mineral oil

TO THE EDITOR: After a high‐pressure injection injury with an oil‐adjuvant vaccine many patients are triaged exclusively as a needlestick injury. This incomplete classification reduces the likelihood for early identification of local or systemic infections or injury, zoonoses or allergic or anaphylactic reactions.1 A review of European agricultural workers showed that of 59 patients who experienced needlestick injuries, 20 cases (34%) involved oil‐adjuvant vaccines.2 Surgical intervention was reported in only 25 patients (42%),2 contradicting product label directions, which instruct that the wound should be incised and irrigated to remove the vaccine. A similar need for an improved treatment plan was recently articulated after a high‐pressure injection injury from a ruptured hydraulic hose in an Australian farmer.3,4