We’re ready to handle medical waste after vaccination— Zoompak assures

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

He said the company is ready to segregate, collect, treat and properly dispose of waste materials from the vaccination exercise, adding that the company has the capacity to handle the medical waste.

Mr Tengey said this during a media tour at the Zoompak Medical Waste Treatment Facility at Teshie and some selected vaccination centres in the Greater Accra Region Wednesday, March 3, 2021.

He further stated that the company is installing waste treatment plants in all the sixteen regions of the country to carter for this waste.

He explained that “each regional installation has an autoclave supported by steam which produces steam to kill all germs and microorganisms in medical waste after which 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”.

As part of the process, Mr. Tengey said his outfit which is in partnership with a Turkish investor, Campak Group of Turkey, have also 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, “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”, he added.

According to him, this would complement the 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.

Mr 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.