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The Bureau for Global Health (GH) has recently begun collaborating on an important initiative with the Bureaus for Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) regarding healthcare waste management. This initiative is for the full technical update of the Healthcare Waste Sector Environmental Guideline (SEG), which was originally developed for USAID under the recently-completed Global Environmental Management Support (GEMS II) project. The SEG provides information essential to assessing the potential impacts of healthcare activities and designing projects with appropriate mitigation measures and monitoring requirements in response to those impacts. USAID staff and Implementing Partners involved with health projects will benefit from the upcoming revised version, which is expected later this year.

Small-scale healthcare activities, such as rural health posts and small hospitals, provide important and often critical healthcare services to individuals and communities that would otherwise have little or no access to such services. The medical and health services they provide improve family planning, nurture child and adult health, prevent disease, cure debilitating illnesses, and alleviate the suffering of the dying. However, appropriate management of associated waste from these services and facilities is limited, especially in small-scale facilities in developing countries, which poses risks to both the environment and human health.

The Healthcare Waste SEG update will take into account technical developments since the original SEG was developed prior to 2003. This includes descriptions of waste treatment and disposal technologies that may be available for global health projects. In addition, the updated SEG will present various case study examples to illustrate key thematic issues, such as potential impacts of improper disposal. Overall, the SEG revisions seek to better align USAID guidance on the topic with guidance from other major institutions, such as the World Health Organization’s Safe management of wastes from health-care activities handbook.

Stay tuned and subscribe to the EnviroLinks newsletter to be among the first to find out when the updated Healthcare Waste SEG has been published!