Amid COVID-19 pandemic, biomedical waste turning more hazardous
Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Economy
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Splash
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Long Read
  • Games
  • Epaper
  • More
    • COVID-19
    • Bangladesh
    • Infograph
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Thoughts
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Subscribe
    • Archive
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
    • Supplement
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard
TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2022
TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2022
  • Home
  • Economy
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Splash
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Long Read
  • Games
  • Epaper
  • More
    • COVID-19
    • Bangladesh
    • Infograph
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Thoughts
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Subscribe
    • Archive
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
    • Supplement
  • বাংলা
Amid COVID-19 pandemic, biomedical waste turning more hazardous

Coronavirus chronicle

UNB
10 April, 2020, 11:55 am
Last modified: 10 April, 2020, 11:58 am

Related News

  • S Korea says it will spare no effort to help North Korea amid Covid outbreak
  • Kim Jong Un orders North Korea military to 'stabilise' drug supply amid Covid outbreak
  • RMCH shuts down its corona unit
  • Beijing works from home, Shanghai says victory against Covid getting closer
  • N Korea says six dead after admitting Covid outbreak for first time

Amid COVID-19 pandemic, biomedical waste turning more hazardous

Amid all the problems so far it created, one significant problem can create major havoc in this already devastating and contagious atmosphere in a densely populated city like Dhaka - handling medical waste

UNB
10 April, 2020, 11:55 am
Last modified: 10 April, 2020, 11:58 am
Photo: UNB
Photo: UNB

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has already turned healthy places around the world into living hells with massive death tolls because of its fastest-spreading nature, and continuously resulting lockdowns in almost every part of the world.

Amid all the problems so far it created, one significant problem can create major havoc in this already devastating and contagious atmosphere in a densely populated city like Dhaka - handling medical waste. 

A few days ago, Tongi police station (East) explored a disgusting case scenario - a man named Nasir was convicted on charges of recycling used masks and hand gloves that had been collected from hospitals in Tongi, Uttara and Gazipur.

Amid huge demand for surgical masks and gloves in the market during this crisis period, Nasir collected those from the dumping grounds of hospitals and washed bloodstains with shampoo. Locals explored his secret business when he sent those masks and gloves into a local laundry for the final ironing, thus police discovered this heinous act.

This type of reprehensible act is easy to commit by the immoral and evil-minded people when hospitals become careless and dump their medical wastages without proper safety measures. The masks and gloves are two of the examples of thousands of tonnes medical waste that are poorly disposed of after being used.

China's Wuhan, the first of the cities that got viciously brutalized by the pandemic, is the home to 11 million people. Its hospitals produced more than 240 tonnes of medical waste daily during the peak of the outbreak compared with 40 tonnes before the epidemic occurred, according to China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment's emergency office.

To fight this enormous amount of medical wastages, the central government deployed 46 mobile medical waste treatments facilitates to the city of Wuhan and built a new plant with a capacity of 30 tonnes within 15 days in March.

In India, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has recently released specific guidelines for handling and safe disposal of biomedical waste generated during the diagnosis, treatment and quarantine period of patients confirmed or suspected to have the Covid-19. Though the country already had Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules (formed in 2016), the new CPCB guidelines were released to ensure that the waste generated specifically during testing of people and treatment of COVID-19 patients is disposed of in a scientific manner.

Biomedical wastes are hazardous because they host potential virus particles that can be hidden beneath human tissues, items contaminated with blood bags, needles, syringes or any other sharp object, body fluids-remaining like dressings, plaster casts, cotton swabs, beddings contaminated with blood or body fluid etc.

Although Bangladesh has not been yet victimized by COVID-19 in terms of the death count compared to Wuhan in China, New York in the United States or the whole population of European countries like Italy, Spain and France - the medical waste management has always been an issue to think about.

According to the Medical Waste (Management and Processing) Rules 2008, "medical wastes could not be mixed with other wastes at any stage -- while producing inside hospitals, while collecting from hospitals, while transporting, and would be processed separately based on classification".
 
Experts say medical wastages are not like other wastes such as the household or industrial wastages. It can infect one directly through the skin or by ingestion and inhalation with objects like inhalers or ventilating pipes. Many contagious viruses including HIV and Hepatitis (B and C) can easily be generated from such wastes and can harm the ones who do not have the diseases. Germs and viruses, which are antibiotic-resistant (such as the COVID-19 at this point) can easily spread from medical waste.

"Most of the times we observe public health catastrophes such as cholera, typhoid, pneumonia etc. or even sexual diseases like HIV - and we blame the polluted environment and human nature and behaviour. Well, it's not always the water or air, but can be sourced from medical wastes too," Prof Dr Md Abdul Mannan, a Fellow of WHO on HIV AIDS (Bangkok) and Head of the Department, Dermatology and Venereology at Cumilla Medical College Hospital told UNB.
 
The rules, as can be seen, contain no specific mention about the wastages that are produced from the COVID-19 affected patients in home quarantine. Although the humongous and increasing numbers of COVID-19 affected patients were unimaginable at the time when the rules were first finalized, the current situation certainly demands new guidelines as it can create larger havocs in Bangladesh, one of the most densely-populated countries in the world.
 
Several private and public hospitals in the city have often claimed to follow proper methods to manage the medical wastages. However, case scenarios like the above-mentioned disposable masks and gloves recycling crimes are turning heads among the hospital authorities to properly manage the medical wastages.
 
If the massive amount of medical wastages cannot be managed through maintaining proper and adequate guidelines, chances of community-based spreading of COVID-19 can exceed the limit and take more lives in the upcoming days.

Top News

COVID-19 / Coronavirus / biomedical waste

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Social safety budget to stay same despite inflation rise
    Social safety budget to stay same despite inflation rise
  • RMG makers worried over move on power tariff hike
    RMG makers worried over move on power tariff hike
  • File photo. Workers making stuffed toys at a small toy factory in Kamrangirchar, Dhaka. Photo: Mumit M/TBS
    25% of govt procurement must come from CMSMEs

MOST VIEWED

  • North Korea Covid outbreak is 'worrying' for new variants -WHO
    North Korea Covid outbreak is 'worrying' for new variants -WHO
  • People watch a TV broadcasting a news report on the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak in North Korea, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea on 17 May 2022. Photo: Reuters.
    N Korea Covid outbreak could have 'devastating' impact on human rights, UN says
  • Two women hug at a closed street during lockdown, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Shanghai, China, May 16, 2022. REUTERS/Aly Song
    Shanghai achieves 'zero Covid' status but normal life is weeks away
  • People wearing protective face masks commute amid concerns over the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Pyongyang, North Korea March 30, 2020, in this photo released by Kyodo. Picture taken March 30, 2020. Mandatory credit Kyodo/via REUTERS
    N Korea mobilises army, steps up tracing amid Covid wave
  • Customers wait in front of a restaurant in Beijing, China April 15, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/Files
    China's economy skids as lockdowns hit factories, retailers
  • A medical worker in a protective suit collects a swab from a resident at a makeshift nucleic acid testing site inside a residential compound under lockdown, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Shanghai, China April 14, 2022. REUTERS/Xihao Jiang
    Shanghai aims for return to normal life from 1 June

Related News

  • S Korea says it will spare no effort to help North Korea amid Covid outbreak
  • Kim Jong Un orders North Korea military to 'stabilise' drug supply amid Covid outbreak
  • RMCH shuts down its corona unit
  • Beijing works from home, Shanghai says victory against Covid getting closer
  • N Korea says six dead after admitting Covid outbreak for first time

Features

Despite Bangladesh having about 24,000 km of waterways, only a few hundred kilometres are covered by commercial launch services. Photo: Saad Abdullah

Utilising waterways: When common home-goers show the way

10h | Panorama
Illustration: TBS

How Putin revived Nato

12h | Panorama
The reception is a volumetric box-shaped room that has two glass walls on both the front and back ends and the other two walls are adorned with interior plants, wood and aluminium screens. Photo: Noor-A-Alam

The United House: Living and working inside nature

12h | Habitat
Pcycle team members at a waste management orientation event. Photo: Courtesy

Pcycle: Turning waste from bins into beautiful crafts

13h | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

The first mosque in India was built Prophet Mohammad time

The first mosque in India was built Prophet Mohammad time

3h | Videos
After six decades ,the Archies is back

After six decades ,the Archies is back

3h | Videos
Exporters in discomfort, expatriates preferring Hundi

Exporters in discomfort, expatriates preferring Hundi

3h | Videos
Can your coworker be your closest friend?

Can your coworker be your closest friend?

13h | Videos

Most Read

1
Representative Photo: Pixabay.
Bangladesh

Microplastics found in 5 local sugar brands

2
Mushfiq Mobarak. Photo: Noor-A-Alam
Panorama

Meet the Yale professor who anchors his research in Bangladesh and scales up interventions globally

3
The story of Bangladesh becoming a major bicycle exporter
Industry

The story of Bangladesh becoming a major bicycle exporter

4
How Bangladesh can achieve edible oil self-sufficiency with local alternatives
Bazaar

How Bangladesh can achieve edible oil self-sufficiency with local alternatives

5
Govt tightens belt to relieve reserve
Economy

Govt tightens belt to relieve reserve

6
Impact of falling taka against US dollar
Banking

Taka losing more value as global currency market volatility persists

The Business Standard
Top
  • Home
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • About Us
  • Bangladesh
  • International
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
  • Contact Us
  • Economy
  • Sitemap
  • RSS

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net

Copyright © 2022 THE BUSINESS STANDARD All rights reserved. Technical Partner: RSI Lab