Covid-19 and Challenges of Management of Infectious Medical Waste in Nigeria: A Case of Taraba State

The outbreak and spread of covid-19 pandemic has triggered awareness in people about how vital the hospital waste management process in every single country can be. The increasing number of covid-19 infection in Nigeria is already putting increasing pressure on the healthcare systems in the country. The highly infectious nature of the coronavirus would require a complex and special protocol of handling and managing the infectious medical waste generated such as confinement (bins, bags etc.) and availability of proper storage and disposal facilities. In Nigeria, all efforts towards containing the outbreak and spread of the corona virus is directed towards establishing testing, isolation and treatment centres/facilities. Little or nothing is said about the handling and safe disposal of infectious waste generated from the management of the disease. This study has examined covid-19 and the challenges of management of infectious medical waste in Nigeria using the case of Taraba state. The study used interview and secondary materials online to generate data used in the study. The study findings reveal that the medical waste is spread out beyond hospitals. Findings from the study reveals that Jalingo the state capital has no any officially approved dumpsite in the metropolis. Also the tertiary healthcare facilities in the State has no proper safe disposal facilities of infectious medical waste at the moment. Other challenges include the various myths surrounding the reality of the covid-19 pandemic, poor enforcement of infectious medical waste guidelines and lack of political will on the part of the government. Based on the findings, the study recommends effective enforcement of the guidelines on the safe disposal of infectious, use of PPEs by all waste collection workers and creation of environmental department in every hospital to handle all infectious medical waste.