Looming Crises: COVID-19, Risk Communication and Lessons from Biomedical Waste Management in India

The COVID-19 pandemic hit hard several aspects of public health infrastructure globally. In India, public health and well-being infrastructures, such as waste management, have been under tremendous stress in managing the pandemic. By focusing on biomedical waste management (BMWM), this article grounds itself in data drawn from secondary literature available in the public domain and critically analyses the policy environment and implementation around BMWM during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the analysis uses the vantage points of existing infrastructure capacities, preparedness of the frontline workers, awareness and practices of end users. The study reveals that (a) a lack of context in policy and guidelines, in addition to the delay in policy response; (b) burdened infrastructure capacities which saw waste inflow which was several times more than their capacities; (c) minimally trained frontline workers, putting them at heightened risk and (d) a lack of coordinated risk communication efforts specifically for end users in handling biomedical waste. The article discusses these gaps in the policy design, delivery/implementation, infrastructure availability and access, along with the role of risk communication and preparing for future crises and pandemics.