Lassa, Coronavirus: Council urges improved hygiene in markets, motor parks

The Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORECON) has urged traders in market and transporters in parks in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja to step up in the area of improved hygiene practices within their environments. The council said more than ever before, the scourge of Lassa fever in the country which has […]

The Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORECON) has urged traders in market and transporters in parks in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja to step up in the area of improved hygiene practices within their environments.

The council said more than ever before, the scourge of Lassa fever in the country which has recorded unimaginable death toll on citizens, at the time the global community is witnessing the fast spread of a new killer disease known as Coronavirus, demands that market and motor park managers and everybody that operates in those environments ensured proper sanitation at all times.

Speaking at a one-day ‘Sensitization Programme on Public Health/Hygiene and Waste Management’, which held weekend in two locations – Garki Model market and Jabi motor park respectively, Kevin Okafor, an Assistant Director on Environmental Sanitation, said the programme is aimed at teaching and enlightening the traders and transporters on the processes to follow in curtailing the spread of diseases around their business environments.

“Markets and motor parks are among high trafficked environments where diseases and germs can easily be contacted or spread. It is for this reason that we at EHORECON are starting our 2020 sensitisation from the market and motor park areas, to let them know that it is more advantageous to have good hygiene culture with proper waste management and disposal cycles in place,” he stated.

To the Garki market management and traders, he counselled, “we urge you to take this sensitisation serious in the face of the ravaging Lassa fever deaths. Keep your market environment, shops and stalls clean by carefully disposing of all forms of refuse and wastes generated into dustbins that are tightly covered to prevent penetration by rats and flies with the capacity to spread germs and viruses on our food items within the market.”

He also urged executive and members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) at Jabi, to discourage open defecation and build toilets and bathrooms for the use of members and commuters who daily throng the park.

Okafor said, “any motor park that fails to observe good hygiene or sanitation will be contaminated and liable to spread diseases around, as travellers can pick up a disease to another destination as in the case of Coronavirus”

He maintained that the only way to stop the spread of any disease in the environment is for people to stand up for hygiene that promotes good, social living conditions

In his remark, Isah Adamu, who is also an Assistant Director in the agency said drivers must at all times keep their vehicles clean such that rats, cockroaches and bedbugs don’t find accommodation in them to the extent that they co-travel with humans from place to place.

A representative of the market traders, Mrs Jessica Nwachukwu, who sells vegetables at Karu market expressed gratitude to the officers of the council for the sensitization, stating that she has always been an advocate of good hygiene in the market area.

She advised that “people should buy vegetable and take it home first for proper washing before cutting as against the practice whereby people ask for it to be cut in the market”.

On his part, the Assistant Secretary of NURTW, FCT chapter, Mr Lawrence Fadipe, commended EHORECON for the initiative and assured that the FCT executive will put in place all that was suggested.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Officers took an inspection tour round the model market to ascertain the condition of the areas where meat, fish and food sellers carry out their trade.