Body piercings should be discouraged, doctor says.

Tattoos or incisions could endanger the skin and traumatize the body, a physician, Ibraheem Adebayo, said in Abuja on Wednesday.

He described tattoos as a form of incision made on the body by a beautician or an individual in order to beautify the body.

“These days, it is becoming common in our society, almost everyone does tattoo, it could be done traditional as a form of tribal mark,” he said.

Mr. Adebayo explained that tattoo’s for tribal marks were usually practiced in the south western and northern parts of the country.

He said the incision could be neuronal, causing injury to the basic functional unit of the nerves system. He also said that one could contract infections such as bacteria, common in a dirty environment, through the process.

Mr. Adebayo added that there could be other deadly infections such as HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C among others because the needles and instruments used might not be sterilised.

He said this could lead to the transfer of infection from one person to another.

“It is said that in some parts of the world that most HIV infections were transmitted by this act of incision.

“So it is very easy to transfer diseases or infection to another person through this process,” he said, adding that

traditional marks practitioners did not know how to sterilise their instruments.

He said that in some parts of the world, the practice had been curtailed to control the transmission of infections.

He said there could also be a problem where the skin tissue would grow excessively disfiguring the individual which could lead to surgery.

“I think it should be discouraged,” he said. “In the world, the prevalence of communicable disease is increasing, there is the need to discourage body piercing.”