Dr. Fenton Ferguson, Jamaica's Minister of Health, on Thursday officially opened a the country's National Medical Waste Management Facility which was built at a cost of 3 million US dollars with support from the World Bank under the National HIV/STI Control Project.
The facility, located at Drummond Street in Kingston, is the only one of its kind in the island and uses steam sterilisation and shredding technology, determined to be the most cost effective and appropriate technology for Jamaica.
The types of medical waste generated and sent for treatment at the plant include used syringes, and other sharp instruments, infectious and pathological wastes containing HIV and other blood-borne pathogens, hazardous chemicals, pharmaceutical products and genotoxic chemicals which are highly dangerous.
In 2004 Jamaica placed ninth in the world when evaluated by PAHO/WHO using nine essential public health indices.
Dr. Ferguson sais this initiative was another important milestone to further improve Jamaica's public health status.
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