We want to help with proper disposal of hazardous vaccination waste - Zoompak

According to WHO, Incorrectly disposed or unsecured vaccines and medications can have a detrimental effect on the environment as well as posing an extreme risk to people who come into unauthorized contact with them.

With the emergence of this COVID-19 and subsequent Vaccination, Medical centres and hospitals are likely to generate millions of hazardous wastes from the vaccination, and if not disposed of properly can have a dangerous impact on the environment.

It is in the light of the above that the Head of Medical Waste Department at Zoompak Ghana Limited, a subsidiary company of Jospong Group of Companies (JGC), Engineer Senam Tengey, has expressed Zoompak’s readiness to manage medical wastes that would be generated from the ongoing nationwide vaccination exercise.

According to him, the objective of the company is to prevent another infectious disaster arising out of post-COVID-19 vaccinations.

Ing. Tengey made the disclosure on Monday, March 8 2021 at a news conference in Kumasi to initiate the process for Medical Waste disposal management in the region.

He further assured of his company’s readiness to segregate, collect, treat and properly dispose waste materials generated from the vaccination exercise.

He revealed that the company is installing waste treatment plants in all the sixteen regions of the country, hence would have the capacity to handle the medical wastes that would be generated in the course of the vaccination exercise.

He added that each regional installation has an autoclave coupled with a steam boiler which produces steam to kill all germs and bacteria in medical waste adding that “ the substance is transferred to a shredder which grinds the sterilised substance for safe dumping at the company’s designated dump site without any fear of infection”.

The Medical Waste Engineer also revealed that the company has adopted a transportation system where all the vaccination wastes would be transported to various treatment plants for onward proper disposal.

“Because the syringe will come into contact with blood of people it is important that the syringe and other waste are properly disposed of,” he said.

He revealed that Zoompak Ghana Limited which is in partnership with a Turkish investor, Campak Group of Turkey, has distributed a total of 3500 bins across the country to aid the segregation of waste.

He said every vaccination centre would be provided with three different bins where each would contain the rapper of syringes and other general waste adding that another bin with a label of medical waste would take the cotton used to soak blood after the injection and sharps containers which he said would store the used syringes.

Ing. Tengey stressed that the medical waste would then be picked by specialized trucks of different capacities and sent to the medical waste treatment centre at Teshie , a suburb of Accra where the treatment plant is situated.

On her part, the Director of Communications and Corporate Affairs, Ms Emma Akyea Boakye stressed that with the successes chalked by Zoomlion Ghana limited in the disinfection exercise, Zoompak is expected to achieve similar feat with its quest to manage the disposal of the vaccination and medical waste.

The Medical Superintendent for Suntreso Hospital Dr. Agyapong Opoku commended Zoomoak for the initiative stressing that it would go a long way to ensuring safety disposal of the medical waste.

Later, the Zoompak team led Journalists to Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Suntreso government hospital among others where Journalists were taken through the medical waste disposal process at three (3) Vaccination centers.