My daughter, who has type 1 diabetes, used another child’s lancet device and meter at school. She had forgotten hers at home. She has gotten into a lot of trouble for doing this both with us and the school. It was a drum-type lancet device and she is insisting she turned it, but I can’t say I believe her 100%. Should I be concerned about blood contamination?

Your concerns are understandable. IF the child who owned the lancing device has hepatitis or HIV (or several other rarer but concerning diseases), then there is a SMALL, but finite, chance that your child could have acquired the germ through a used lancet. Again the odds are extremely small. Accidents like this have happened before, such as a gathering of folks with diabetes – such as a diabetes campout, etc.

I would suggest the following:

Contact the parents whose lancet was used and inquire about the child’s health.

Contact your local health department, as they might have a protocol. For instance, for public health matters, they might test the child whose lancet was used to test him/her. If that child is free of disease, then the risk to your child would be essentially zero.

Contact (you can do this or your pediatrician or your pediatric endocrinologist) the Pediatric Infectious Disease section of your closest University Medical School or Children’s Hospital and get their input.

Again, your concerns are not without merit but the odds are extremely low there has been transmission of “something bad.”

DS