Safe management of wastes from health-care activities: A summary

Overview

The waste produced in the course of health care activities, from contaminated needles to radioactive isotopes, can cause infection and injury, and inadequate management is likely to have serious public health consequences and deleterious effects on the environment.

This document highlights the key aspects of safe health-care waste management in order to guide policy-makers, practitioners and facility managers to improve such services in health-care facilities. It is based on the comprehensive WHO handbook Safe management of wastes from health-care activities (WHO, 2014), and also takes into consideration relevant World Health Assembly resolutions, other UN documents and emerging global and national developments on water, sanitation and hygiene and infection prevention and control.