Abstract
Malaysia recorded 8904 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases and 124 deaths as of 27 July 2020. Globally, everyday there are thousands of new cases of COVID-19 being recorded. Due to the high number of infections globally and nationwide the increase in the amount of clinical waste (CW) generation was expected. Malaysia has reported a 27% (by weight) increase in the generation of CW which was mostly attributed to COVID-19 related waste. This article presents the impacts of COVID-19 in waste generation, policy and regulation of CW management (CWM) in Malaysia and a case study on the CWM at a selected hospital used as a COVID-19 focal point. The current practice of CWM due to COVID-19 related cases follows the existing policy and legislation of CWM detailed in the Schedule Waste Regulation (2005), Environmental Quality Act, 1974, and with the standard operating procedure provided by the Ministry of Health, Malaysia. The case study conducted through survey and questionnaire interviews revealed that the CWM in government hospitals followed existing guidelines for CWM for COVID-19 waste, with some additional precautions and rules by the waste management contractors.
Highlights
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been reported to first begin in December 2019 at Wuhan, People’s Republic of China (PRC) which can be transmitted by human to human (Yu et al, 2020)
This article presents the impacts of COVID-19 in waste generation, policy and regulation of clinical waste (CW) management (CWM) in Malaysia and a case study on the CWM at a selected hospital used as a COVID-19 focal point
The current practice of CWM due to COVID-19 related cases follows the existing policy and legislation of CWM detailed in the Schedule Waste Regulation (2005), Environmental Quality Act, 1974, and with the standard operating procedure provided by the Ministry of Health, Malaysia
Summary
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been reported to first begin in December 2019 at Wuhan, People’s Republic of China (PRC) which can be transmitted by human to human (Yu et al, 2020). COVID-19 is likely a zoonotic infection, which was transmitted from an unknown animal source to humans (Abdullah et al, 2020). Since the number of infections is increasing rapidly and has caused a global emergency. The total number of cases reported globally on 27 July 2020 was 16,659,001 and the total death toll has reached 656,849 (Worldometer, 2020). The death toll due to COVID-19 is 6.2% from the number of people infected of COVID-19 (Gardner, 2020). The spreading of COVID-19 is via human-to-human transmission with an average basic reproductive rate (R0) of 2.2 meaning for each patient, 2.2 other individuals become infected (Abdullah et al, 2020)
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