Advertisement
Local authorities across the land are rolling out programmes to disinfect areas frequented by the general public, but these venues don’t include privately-owned properties where multiple inhabitants converge in shared spaces. Read on if you care about safety in your estate’s high-use zones…
Welcome back!
Following the presidential announcement moving South Africa to Adjusted Alert Level 3, Western Cape cultural affairs and sport minister Anroux Marais urged residents to have safety in mind when returning to facilities such as archive-management services, museums, and libraries.
These sites were also reopened for public use: cinemas, theatres, and casinos; swimming pools, beaches and parks; game parks, botanical gardens, aquariums and zoos; gyms and fitness centres; restaurants, bars, shebeens and taverns; venues hosting auctions or professional sport; and venues for religious, social, political or cultural gatherings.
Advertisement
National health plan
Recommended frequencies for disinfection of public places are contained in the Health department’s Public Hygiene Strategy Plan. “Workplaces should be disinfected daily and public places at least once a week,” it says.
It prescribes that, before disinfection, the public area should be ventilated with fresh air for an hour.
It adds: “Hydrogen peroxide gas-sterilisation devices can be used for integrated disinfection. A mixture of 0.5% peroxyacetic acid, 3% hydrogen peroxide, or 500mg/L chlorine dioxide can be adopted for air disinfection, by aerosol spray.”
Municipalities take care of their own
Communications manager Chantèl Edwards-Klose says George Municipality disinfects its own buildings – including public areas such as drivers-licence facilities or cashier halls – on a rotational schedule each month.
‘Infrastructure includes personnel-manned pump stations, waste-water treatment plants, refuse camps, and municipal vehicles. This is undertaken by George Fire Services or Corporate Services personnel, and no service providers are used.
‘Private premises are not included in our schedule,’ she says. So the fact that managers can’t count on local authorities to do their ‘clean work’ for them, opens the door for private suppliers to provide disinfecting services within estates.
Old hands in hygiene
Bidvest Steiner is one of South Africa’s oldest players in the field of hygiene care, having started operations here in 1958, and claims to constantly explore innovations in hygiene.
Anti-Microbial Treatment (AMT) is one such an invention, involving advanced disinfecting with a high-level, non-toxic, organic solution to disinfect various surfaces.
AMT is applied using a micron diffuser – producing a dry-mist aerosol effect, it permeates the entire facility and covers every cubic centimetre of exposed surface area.
The environment-friendly mist ensures a 99.99% kill of microbial contaminants including bacterial infections, viruses, fungi, and mites.
Hands-on at Kingswood Estate
CEO Willem Jacobs says that at the outset of the pandemic, specialist pest-control systems were used to disinfect other public areas, but now Kingswood Golf Operations, run by Liesel Niehaus and Mike Quinn, takes care of this task.
‘Since they manage operation of most areas, including the restaurant, bar and smoking area, they are responsible for general cleaning, so it makes sense for them to also disinfect the building. Additional staff are employed when sanitisation is part of the process.’
Niehaus says that all areas are disinfected daily, ‘and high-traffic zones are done a few times a day’.
The future of disinfecting?
FAR-UVC Africa in June received certification from the Council for Scientific Research for its ground-breaking sanitation-lighting system that destroys the coronavirus.
‘No other product effectively kills SARS-Cov-2 and all other pathogens and bacteria, in the air and on surfaces, with the speed and effectiveness of Far-UVC. Unlike UV-C light, it does not penetrate the skin or eyes, making it 100% safe for humans and animals alike,” claims FAR-UVC Africa MD Conrad Kullmann.
The light causes a physical distraction of viral, bacterial, and fungal cells in seconds, providing practical and effective countermeasures to fight off infectious diseases and pathogens.
Visit www.faruvcafrica.com to find out more.
