Tirupati: Management of biomedical waste from Covid infected houses poses threat

Tirupati: Medical waste in houses and apartments poses risk to others. When Covid infections were on rise many people preferred home isolation rather than admitting at Covid care centres or hospitals when they are asymptomatic or having mild symptoms. The officials at the triage centres also advising such patients to be under home isolation.

In Chittoor district alone more than 10,000 Covid patients are under home isolation till now during the second wave while on Friday itself about 105 were added to the list. There are more than 3,000 active cases under home isolation now. These patients have been getting advice on their medication, other precautions like yoga, nutritious food and biomedical waste management by Mid-level health providers, said Additional DM&HO Dr C Aruna Sulochana Devi. These things are being followed up regularly.

On its part, the Municipal Corporation authorities have asked the sanitary staff not to collect the garbage from quarantined houses as it will be handled by a private agency.

The agency collects the bio medical waste and takes it to the treatment plant located at Pachikapallam in Vedurukuppam mandal about 35 km away from Tirupati where it will be disposed of in a scientific manner.

However, during the second wave, the houses and apartments where infected persons are being isolated could not be easily found and differentiated as no stickers can be found at several such localities.

Many people were getting tested somewhere and silently staying at home. It has become difficult to identify such people as they have been moving normally with others.

Even the infected persons have been keeping entire garbage including the used masks, sanitiser bottles, gloves etc., in the same bin which are being collected by the watchmen of the apartments.

In turn, the sanitary staff collecting the door-to-door garbage handles this without any safety gear through which they are prone to more risk as they collect even garbage from Covid infected houses without any segregation.

Even several private hospitals were not managing the bio medical waste in a proper way which can be seen even on roads.

The officials have to focus their attention seriously on management of medical waste from houses and hospitals. Immediate steps to differentiate homes with Covid infected persons and others are the need of the hour so as to enable the sanitary workers to collect the garbage in a safe mode.