The Upper West Regional General Manager of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Mr Emmanuel Volsuuri has stated that the collection of medical waste generated from the ongoing nationwide 2nd shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine Covid-19 vaccination exercise will promote public health.
According to him, the hazardous medical waste must be collected to protect unsuspecting citizens from contracting versus forms of hazardous waste. Zoomlion Ghana Limited as a giant in waste management is always spearheading the disposition of such waste through the autoclave methodology.
“The aim of the exercise is to ensure proper management of all vaccination waste that is generated from the current ongoing exercise of the second dose of Astrazeneca vaccine to those who took the first dose”.
To achieve this, Mr. Volsuuri said, “we have deployed specialised bins and liners to the vaccination centres for temporary storage which by end of the day will be transported by a specialized vans that ill go round to collect all the waste generated from this exercise for proper treatment and disposal”.
According to him, if the waste generated from the vaccination centres are not collected, it can aid to public health risk.
“The purpose of this exercise is basically to collect all the medical waste that will be generated from the Covid-19 vaccination exercise and properly dispose of them using ultra-modern medical waste disposal mechanisms which Zoomlion is well equipped with.
He added that; the autoclave method will be implemented to ensure the waste is treated and dispose of successfully.
“The autoclave methodology in treating and disposing of the medical waste is being operated in Accra so at the end of the exercise all such waste will be sent back to Accra to be totally disposed of by the method”. He said.
The Medical Waste Manager of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Ing. Senam Tengey in his address said that the exercise forms the collaboration between Zoomlion Ghana Limited, School of Hygiene and the Public Health Department of the Ministry of Health.
Adding that, the Zoomlion Medical Waste Team is ensuring that each vaccination centre has special bins liners for temporal storage of all waste that is generated within each centre across the country.
“The treatment procedure we undertake is that the waste is taking through stem stabilisation and stretching before they are disposed of. This process totally kills all the microorganisms that might be present in the waste and reduce the quality of the waste. When this happens, the benefit that comes with it is that, it prevents and reduces potential spread of diseases such as HIV, Hypertension, etc from needle break injury in case the waste is not properly managed “.
The exercise which begun at the Wa Municipal Health Directorate on Tuesday 31st August 2021 will be carried out in 27 districts in the Upper West Region.
He then commended stakeholders, the School of Hygiene, the Ministry of Health and the Department of Health for their cooperation and support in this exercise to help promote environmental health and safety.