A senior official in Jamaica’s health and wellness ministry is assuring that the country has no worries, at this time, over its capacity to handle the additional loads of medical waste resulting from its response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“We are doing very well, and we will be doing much better once we are able to increase the capacity of our treatment, which we are actively now pursuing,” Richard Baker, the ministry’s director of medical solid waste management, told the Jamaica Observer against the background of global health and environmental red flags raised by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO says tens of thousands of tonnes of extra medical waste from the response to the COVID-19 has put significant strain on health-care waste management systems globally.

In a report released on Tuesday, the WHO said the additional tonnage of medical waste now threatens human and environmental health, and that there is dire need to improve waste management practices.

The WHO, in its global analysis of health-care waste in the COVID-19 context, says approximately 87,000 tonnes of personal protective equipment procured between March 2020 and November 2021 and shipped to support countries’ urgent COVID-19 response needs through a joint United Nations emergency initiative, have ended up as waste.

The authors of the global analysis report point out that this is just an initial hint of the magnitude of the COVID-19 waste problem.

“Over 140 million test kits, with a potential to generate 2,600 tonnes of non-infectious waste (mainly plastic) and 731,000 litres of chemical waste (equivalent to one-third of an Olympic-size swimming pool) have been shipped, while over eight billion doses of vaccine have been administered globally, producing 144,000 tonnes of additional waste in the form of syringes, needles, and safety boxes,” WHO states.

Baker said the additional tonnage of medical waste from vaccines would not be different for Jamaica, as the projection is for about 11,000 tonnes of medical waste per one million dose of COVID-19 vaccines.

“Generally the vaccination entails the PPEs, and in terms of the vaccine itself it would mostly be the vials and needles and syringes, and the packaging material for those. Since we are looking at giving about four million doses of vaccines, then we would be looking at about 44,000 tonnes,” he explained.

Baker noted that prior to COVID-19, the island’s medical waste, including from private facilities, amounted to about 1,600 tonnes annually. This has increased by at least 10 per cent, as more people seek medical care or are hospitalised with COVID-19.

“We have seen an increase; we have more people hospitalised at times, so the amount of waste generated would similarly increase,” he said, explaining that the waste is treated by a sterilisation process and then are disposed of.

“We have no medical waste that we just dispose of generally in the environment,” he stressed.

Currently there is one central plant, located in Kingston, for medical waste disposal, but the ministry is making plans to add to that capacity.

“We are looking to build out across the island so it would take some of the pressure off this central unit. We also, at times, engage incineration facilities, which are licensed and permitted by NEPA (National Environment and Planning Agency) for those activities. So if we are overwhelmed, we engage those to assist,” he advised, noting that all medical facilities have waste storage facilities.

Baker said the overarching guidance to personnel on the ground for medical waste management is that the infection control and prevention measures of the ministry are to be strictly enforced, with black bags used for general waste, and red bags for medical waste.

He said oftentimes both categories end up as medical waste. “What you find in a number of instances, people just throw everything into the red bag. Once it goes into that bag it is medical waste so it is tied, brought to the dedicated storage area in medical facilities, and then it is transported from there to the treatment plant and then disposed of. All waste has to be dealt with in that strict IPC guidance, and the workers are fitted with PPEs”.

Baker stressed that any facility that generates medical waste must take all necessary precautions to prevent infection transmission to medical staff, patients, and people who work in the treatment facilities and disposal sites.

The WHO estimates that up to 60 per cent of health-care facilities in the least developed countries are not equipped to handle existing waste loads, a deficit which is aggravated by the additional COVID-19 waste, potentially exposing health workers to needle stick injuries, burns and pathogenic microorganisms.