Infectious Waste Management During the Covid-19 Pandemic
2/1/2021
The COVID-19 Pandemic has posed a lot of challenges for economic sectors throughout the world. It has affected all sectors of the society including waste management. Most developing countries have failed to adhere to the international standards with regards to waste management, resulting to more infections.
Due to the easy spread of the virus, the generation of medical waste has greatly increased. Healthcare facilities generate a massive amount of medical waste as the staff and patients are forced to wear masks and gloves. Infectious waste is generated from pathological waste and waste from autopsy and surgery that has contacted infectious agents.
If infectious wastes are not properly handled through proper techniques and adherence to set guidelines, then there is a high likelihood of COVID-19 infections increasing. Therefore, governments need to analyze their country’s capacity to manage the infectious medical waste.
For instance, they need to determine their medical waste disposal equipment, existing transport capacity for infectious waste. Governments also need to consider their current infectious medical waste management plan and consider if other resources and capacity are needed.
Although international organizations have issued guidelines infectious waste management, only few guidelines can be applied by developing countries. Unlike developed countries, developing countries lack the capacity to manage infectious waste management in terms of finances, social and technical aspects.
Recommendations for Waste Management
Due to the easy spread of the virus, the generation of medical waste has greatly increased. Healthcare facilities generate a massive amount of medical waste as the staff and patients are forced to wear masks and gloves. Infectious waste is generated from pathological waste and waste from autopsy and surgery that has contacted infectious agents.
If infectious wastes are not properly handled through proper techniques and adherence to set guidelines, then there is a high likelihood of COVID-19 infections increasing. Therefore, governments need to analyze their country’s capacity to manage the infectious medical waste.
For instance, they need to determine their medical waste disposal equipment, existing transport capacity for infectious waste. Governments also need to consider their current infectious medical waste management plan and consider if other resources and capacity are needed.
Although international organizations have issued guidelines infectious waste management, only few guidelines can be applied by developing countries. Unlike developed countries, developing countries lack the capacity to manage infectious waste management in terms of finances, social and technical aspects.
Recommendations for Waste Management
Some of the recommendations for waste management include:
- Recycling activities should be discouraged to avoid human contact with infectious medical and domestic waste. It is recommended that all municipal waste should be considered non-recyclable and properly disposed through methods like sanitary landfill or incineration.
- Municipal solid waste collection should be rescheduled based on workforce availability. If there is availability of dedicated medical waste collection, then double-bagged waste must be disposed of immediately.
- All medical waste should be dealt with in accordance to the existing national legislation.