The disinfection of public and private Senior High Schools has begun in all 42 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies in the Ashanti Region.
A total of 134 public and 53 private Senior High Schools (SHSs), as well as, three Special Schools in the region would be fumigated over a ten-day period.
Government indicates that the ongoing exercise to disinfect Senior High Schools in the country is targeted at ridding buildings and facilities of rodents, bedbugs and other insects.
The Ghana Education Service (GES) in collaboration with Zoomlion Ghana Limited is set to fumigate all second-cycle educational institutions in the country.
Authorities say they are taking advantage of the absence of students to carry out the exercise at the various schools.
Environment, Science and Technology Minister, Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, speaking to Citi News during the disinfection of the Prempeh College, says such exercise will help prevent a possible outbreak of Hantavirus, a disease spread by pests and other organisms.
“It is a fight against a disease, bed bugs and other rodents like the rats, mice and others that also bring diseases. Some of you have heard that after the coronavirus infection in China there is another infection called the hantavirus that is also spread by rodents; mice, rats and so on. So the President in his wisdom combined these two so that after coronavirus infection we are not going to get the hantavirus infection. This a very important exercise and we should all thank the President and commend the Minister for Education and our Regional Minister for this exercise and also our friends from the press because you are carrying the message to Ghanaians for them to know what we are doing. And finally. I also want to on behalf of the President commend the health workers; the nurses, technicians and doctors who are at the forefront of fighting this disease.”
More than 400 schools, including the Special Schools, across the country, have been targeted for fumigation in order to disinfect the facilities of harmful bacteria.
The exercise would see administration blocks, classrooms, dormitories, staff bungalows and the campuses of those schools being cleansed thoroughly for the safety of students and staff, according to the Zoomlion Ghana Limited.
Government has also indicated that it would pay attention to fighting against diseases that are spread through pests and other insects even as efforts are intensified in containing the spread of COVID-19.
Some of the schools that have already benefitted from the exercise on the first day include Kumasi Wesley girls high school, Jachie Pramso SHS, Prempeh College, St. Louis SHS, Kumasi high SHS, Kumasi Anglican SHS, Aduman SHS, St. Michael SHS, Ejisuman SHS and Kofi Agyei SHS.
