We’re ready for medical waste after coronavirus vaccination - Zoompak assures

Head of Medical Waste Department at Zoompak Ghana Limited, a subsidiary company of Jospong Group of Companies (JGC), Engineer Senam Tengey, has indicated that his outfit was ready to handle medical wastes that would be generated from the ongoing nationwide vaccination exercise.

In this regard, he has appealed for support to enable his company treat medical waste that would be generated from the ongoing vaccination.

According to him, this would complement his company’s efforts in handling waste materials that would be generated from the current phase of the nationwide vaccination exercise as well as the subsequent phases.

Ing. Tengey made this observation on Wednesday, March 3, 2021 at the Zoompak Medical Waste Treatment Facility at Teshie in the Greater Accra Region where he expressed his company's readiness to segregate, collect,treat and properly dispose waste materials that from the vaccination exercise.

Addressing journalists on the sidelines of a media tour at the treatment site and some selected vaccination centres in the Greater Accra Region Ing. Tengey disclosed that Zoompak Ghana Limited has the capacity to handle medical waste that would be generated during the vaccination.

He further 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 noted that each regional installation has an autoclave supported by a steam boiler which produces steam to kill all germs and microorganisms in medical waste after which the substance is transferred to a shredder which grinds the sterilized substance for safe dumping at the company's designated dump site without any fear of infection.

As part of the process, he revealed that Zoompak Ghana Limited which is in partnership with a Turkish investor, Campak Group of Turkey, have distributed a total of 3,500 bins across the country to aid the segregation of waste.

He said every vaccination center would be provided with three different bins of which; one would contain the rapper of syringes and other general waste, another one with a label of medical waste would take the cotton used to soak blood after the injection and sharps containers which would store the used syringes.

The medical waste would then be picked by specially designed trucks of different capacities to the medical waste treatment centre at Teshie, which is within the Greater Accra Region.

Engineer Tengey was accompanied by the Senior Health Tutor, Accra School of Hygiene, Korle Bu, Kwabena Owusu Amoah, Public Health Nurses' School, Michael Narh and the Senior Medical Waste Tutor, Michael Affordofe, during the first phase of the vaccination.