Parents and guardians have been urged to provide their children with nose masks and alcohol-based hand sanitisers to complement the central government's efforts to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus disease.

Giving the advice on the sideline of a disinfection exercise in St James International School, Lashibi, in the Tema West Constituency, the Tema General Manager of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Seth Appiah Ocran, said the central government alone cannot fight the pandemic.

"And so as parents, we must support the government by ensuring that our school-going children have, at least, nose masks and hand sanitisers to protect them from the COVID-19 pandemic," he urged.

Again, he charged parents to educate their children on the COVID-19 safety protocols.

The exercise, which saw the disinfection of about 17 basic schools in the Tema West Constituency, was part of the President directives for all basic schools in the county to be disinfected before reopening date--Monday, June 29.

Some of the schools that received disinfection on the day were Young Scholars International School, Good Shepherd International School, Azure International School, Apex Community School among others.

According to Mr Appiah Ocran, about 205 basic schools (public and public) were targeted for disinfection in the Tema West Constituency.

"And many of these schools have been disinfected already, adding that we are disinfecting 17 schools today (Wednesday, June 25), and also a mop up of the schools whose heads were not available during the early days of the exercise," he said.

Mr Appiah Ocran, however, said one challenge they encountered during the exercise was the unavailability of some of the schools' head, albeit prior notice about the exercise was relayed to them.

"The unavailability of some of the headmasters/mistresses sometimes delayed the exercise, but I must admit that generally the heads were cooperative," the Tema Zoomlion GM said.

Mr Appiah Ocran went on to disclose that his company had already disinfected all the public schools, adding that "we are left with some private schools then our task would be complete."

"The public schools in Tema are dotted in Communities Two, Five, Klagon, Adjei Kojo areas, and they have all been disinfected," stated Mr Appiah Ocran.

For her part, the Headmistress of Azure International School, Deborah Okyere, commended the central government and Zoomlion Ghana Limited for including private schools in the exercise.