Africa’s biological time bomb: how poor waste management threatens public health

The hidden plague: Africa’s biohazard time bomb

A serious environmental and public health crisis is unfolding in Africa, hidden from the view of the outside world. The region faces an unprecedented threat from poor waste management, which generates a biological risk that could have disastrous consequences if nothing is done to remedy it. As cities and towns across the continent struggle to contain the escalating problem, governments and health systems risk being overwhelmed, leading to a public health emergency that could have devastating consequences for millions of Africans and those who come into contact with them.

From Egypt’s overflowing landfills to Ghana’s polluted oceans, waste management is reaching critical levels across Africa. Insufficient infrastructure, inefficient disposal systems, and widespread informal disposal practices have combined to create a toxic and increasingly complex problem. Urban centers like Lagos, Johannesburg and Nairobi are often mentioned, but it is a pervasive problem that spans the continent.

Pathogens from human waste can infect approximately 49,000 people worldwide with intestinal disease each year (World Health Organization, 2022). Additionally, millions of tons of waste produced daily fill landfills, posing direct risks of water pollution and groundwater contamination. This raises concerns about the emergence of communicable diseases linked to vectors such as mosquitoes (cholera, leptospirosis) and contact with contaminated drinking water and food.

To effectively address these pressing concerns, international cooperation, combined with local efforts, becomes the crucial step, recognizing waste management as one of Africa’s most neglected crises.

Unfortunately, despite an alarming accumulation of waste, many government plans do not adequately support solving such pressing problems through timely strategies. As developing communities bear the brunt of inaction, millions rely on improvised, often perilous, waste sorting measures as a last resort against the consequences that neglected waste brings in exchange for their actions: devastating pollution soils, stigmatization of their neighborhoods by odious odors, additional waste of water and risk of spreading toxic diseases.

Therefore, aware of the urgent crisis facing African residents, some government projects are underway.

Several government commitments proposed in various countries in the region, Africa has developed a series of actions aimed at mitigating and, in the long term, remedying the situation:

• Implementation and regular supervision of adequate waste storage
• Educational campaigns conducted by state ministries of health as part of the
  strategies used to combat transmission through improved
  collaboration between departments
• Continuous application of environmental guarantees via agencies
  within the regulatory bodies of the jurisdictions having authority.

However,
the pace has so far been slow with regard to implementation or monitoring
actions within individual initiatives.

****

For every African and everywhere in the world, this plight should resonate loudly and force immediate efforts to rectify and change the status quo.
. As previously stated: “Improving access to waste management infrastructure in Africa will enable them to better control outbreaks of communicable diseases. » Time should work in our favor – rapid action must accompany efforts across the world! We request your immediate feedback so that you can share your opinions.

How do you agree on what steps to take?
applied ?