Zoomlion installs Autoclave machines to treat medical waste

Zoomlion has installed Autoclave machines at its waste treatment centres across the country to help treat medical waste especially Covid-19 vaccination waste from the various health facilities.

The autoclave machine uses pressurized steam at high temperatures of about 145 decree Celsius and of pressure of about 3.7 bars to sterilize all forms of waste from the vaccination centres. After which the waste is shredded into small particles.

Announcing this to the press on Wednesday September 1, 2021 at Nsawam Government Hospital, the manager for the Medical Waste Department of Zoomlion, Ing. Senam Tengey, said “At this point the waste could be term safe for final disposal because when such waste goes out it does cause any form of environmental health risk to people”.

He explained that vaccination waste is classified as hazardous waste as per the World Health Organization’s standards, this is because the vaccinators inject people with syringes which comes into contact with the blood of the one taking the jab and once the syringe is stained with blood, it is therefore considered as a potentially hazardous waste and if not properly managed and disposed of, it can create challenges.

For instance, if the syringe is used on a person leaving with AIDS or Hepatitis, it is implied that the virus is now on the syringe and when left untreated could prick a child and the virus could be transmitted.

So the vaccination waste is a very high risk waste which needs to be treated with specialized equipment” he cautioned.

He mentioned that Zoomlion has provided pedal as well as 240 litter waste bins across all the health centres where the vaccination is ongoing. The bins have been well labelled and the appropriate colour coded liners has been placed into the bins to help with proper segregation of the waste being generated. The bins are therefore serving as a temporal storage points. 

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He added that a specialized medical waste truck goes around to collect the waste from the centres to the nearest medical waste treatment sites.

To effectively under take this exercise, Zoomlion has trained its staff in Infection Prevention Control (IPC) and Healthcare Waste Management. Additionally, the company is also collaborating with the School of Hygiene who has also provided experts stationed across the country to support the exercise.

In terms of personnel, we have a very great and well-trained team ensuring that all the segregation protocols and healthcare waste management standards are observed,” he stressed.

He appealed to health officials that healthcare waste management is a very critical aspect of managing health because of the hazard that it tends to pose to the environment so all proper administrative procedures and policies that are in place should be enforced so that healthcare waste management including vaccination waste can be managed properly.

The Municipal health Director of Nsawam Adoagyiri, Eunice Abuaku expressed gratitude for the technical and logistical support provided by Zoomlion, adding that it will greatly impact on the success of the exercise.

We are grateful to Zoomlion for the provision of well labelled waste bins and the collection of the medical waste, this will positively affect our work at the municipality” she noted.

According to her, the municipality has recorded five covid-19 related deaths from January to August this year. She therefore urged Ghanaians to be cautious of their health and observe the prevention protocols as well as take the jabs.

Taking the vaccine does not mean that one can not be infected with covid-19, but rather the severity won’t be the same when one is vaccinated,” she observed.

The Nsawam Adoagyiri is expecting to vaccinate a total of 1880 people who took part in the first vaccination exercise. The exercise is expected to end on September 4, 2021.