Govt bans dumping of medical waste in Maragua

The Murang'a South Security Committee on Wednesday stopped further dumping of biomedical waste in a residential village in Maragua town.

The stop order was issued after the matter was highlighted on Nation.Africa.

It also came a few hours after Health CS Mutahi Kagwe had told Nation.Africa that it is the responsibility of the county governments to ensure that public health risks are eliminated by ensuring sanitary standards.

 "It is the county government that should be tasked to deal with the dumping of all sorts of waste," he said.

The residents, through their welfare association coordinator Omar Maluki, had last Saturday issued a seven-day ultimatum for the dumping to stop failure to which they would protest.

On Wednesday, Maragua Assistant County Commissioner Joshua Okello, flanked by a team of administrators, visited the dumpsite and ordered that no further dumping should take place.

"We have instructed our security teams to arrest anyone found dumping any form of waste in this site. Further, we have consulted the county government and have received assurance that the filth here is going to be incinerated," he said.

Mr Okello agreed that the dumpsite was a public health and an environmental concern.

Safely destroy biomedical waste

The administrator confirmed that the waste dumped contains body parts, fetuses as well as highly infectious pathogens from laboratory cultures, isolation wards and swabs. 

"We know that some of the waste is related to Covid-19 isolation wards. It is in that light that the government will criminalise any dumping here," he said.

County Health Executive Joseph Mbai said plans were underway to streamline biomedical waste disposal in the area.

He said there are inadequate incinerators with the capacity to safely destroy biomedical waste.

"We will equip all our level Five and Level Four health facilities with incinerators. That is the only way we can reduce transportation and piling of biomedical waste in the county," he said.

Some private health service providers complained that the county government collects rates from them for biomedical waste disposal but directs them to go and dump theirs in Maragua.

"We were told on Wednesday that we will not be allowed to dump in Maragua. The advice now is that we be taking all our wastes to Gaichanjiru Mission Hospital for incineration," an administrator in one of the private hospitals said.

Mr Mbai confirmed that it will be the case until incineration infrastructure is established.

"The problem we have is a shortage of incinerators. The few we have, have low capacity to handle volumes of the waste generated," he said.