The Federal Government of Nigeria has announced plans to commence disinfection of schools across the federation from June 7, 2020 in preparation for the resumption of school after protracted COVID-19 induced closure.
This was announced by the Minister of Environment, Muhammad Mahmood at the briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja on Monday.
The minister said than plans have been ongoing to disinfect schools, adding that the ministry took its time to harness the modalities before commencing the exercise.
Mahmood said, “Earlier I told you that we have sat with the Ministry of Education and we have the list of all the schools that need to be disinfected before resumption. Well, what we plan to do now is to do (decontaminate) the centres that will be used.”
He explained that the exercise was delayed intentionally to ensure that the chemicals were effective enough when the school resume.
He said, “The delay is because it is better to disinfect and decontaminate within a short period of time so that the kids will be going back into these classes when they have been freshly decontaminated.
“This is because the chemicals we use are chemicals that are not long lasting, they have short contact time to do their job. So we will be getting this done before Monday when they (schoolchildren) will be back to use these classes.”
The minister said the decontamination would commence from Tuesday and assured parents that the schools would be safe for learning activities.
“So it is between tomorrow (Tuesday) and the rest of the week. We have enough teams and people that we will engage to get that done. So rest assured that your kids will be returning to a safe environment when they resume,” he said.
Mahmood said that no zone would be left out as the fumigation would be carried out throughout the country.
Source: PunchNG