Everyone wants injections. Health workers want to give them. Yet injections are not risk-free. Unless clean, sterile needles and syringes are used, viruses such as those causing hepatitis and AIDS; parasites and bacteria can be transmitted from one person to another. The muscle into which the injection is made can be paralysed if the child already has the polio virus in his body. In India, where only the rich can afford disposable needles and syringes; many, often unnecessary injections are given with soiled, contaminated needles and syringes with disastrous results.