The fight against the spread of Coronavirus can only be won through the collective effort of all stakeholders, including the citizenry and corporate organisations, Deputy Minister of Defence, Major Rtd. Derek Oduro, has said.


Speaking in Accra to launch a nationwide disinfection and fumigation exercise of all barracks and armed forces facilities by Zoomlion Ghana Limited, the deputy minister said: “I am optimistic that our collective effort would yield the needed results for our country to return to normalcy.”

The exercise, a joint effort by the Ghana Armed Forces and Zoomlion, will see all facilities of the military including, offices, accommodation, schools, health and recreational centres disinfected and fumigated with chlorine-based chemicals.

It is aimed at ridding all armed forces facilities of bacteria and viruses and forms part of efforts to check the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, which has so far claimed 44 lives and infected 9,638 people.

Mr. Oduro, who is also the Member of Parliament for Nkoranza North Constituency, however, cautioned that the disinfection and fumigation alone cannot be the panacea to the spread of the virus if people fail to follow recommended protocols like social distancing, regular washing of hands with soup under running water, wearing of nose mask and regular use of alcohol based sanitizers.

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For her part, the Chief Operations Officer and Managing Director of Zoomlion, Florence Larbi, said the use of chlorine-based disinfectant is effective in killing bacteria, fungi and viruses, including influenza virus.

“This proposed solution has also been endorsed by our technical consultants from the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research at the University of Ghana, Legon as most effective to inactivate or destroy microorganisms on inert surfaces,” she said.

Mrs. Larbi added: “Ever consistent with our ethos and mission, Zoomlion Ghana Ltd is dedicated to reliable and dependable service in order to satisfy our clients. In line with our patriotic dedication to serving our country, our service rates have been heavily subsidized to as low as 50percent of regular price to help all institutions in both private and public sectors to benefit from our excellent services during these difficult times.”

According to her, the company has in readiness, thousands of motorized spraying machines that can be deployed to a wide coverage area within the shortest time possible, in addition to knapsack and boom spraying machines.