Huge volumes of COVID hospital waste threaten health – WHO
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Discarded syringes, used test kits and old vaccine bottles from the COVID-19 pandemic have piled up to create tens of thousands of tonnes of medical waste, threatening human health and the environment, a World Health Organization report said on Tuesday.
The material potentially exposes health workers to burns, needle-stick injuries and disease-causing germs, the report said.
“We found that COVID-19 has increased healthcare waste loads in facilities to up to 10 times,” Maggie Montgomery, a WHO technical officer, told Geneva-based journalists.
She said the biggest risk for affected communities was air pollution caused by burning waste at insufficiently high temperatures leading to the release of carcinogens.
The report calls for reform and investment including through the reduction in the use of packaging that has caused a rush for plastic and the use of protective gear made from reusable and recyclable materials.
The WHO report estimates that some 87,000 tonnes of personal protective equipment (PPE) or the equivalent of the weight of several hundred blue whales, has been ordered via a U.N. portal up until Nov. 2021 – most of which is thought to have ended up as waste.
