Basseterre, St. Kitts, March 16, 2020 (SKNIS): According to the World Health Organization (WHO), employers should start taking preventative methods to reduce working days lost due to illness and stop or slow the spread of COVID-19 if it arrives at the workplace.
Persons should make sure that their workplaces are clean and hygienic. Surfaces, for example, desks and tables and objects such as telephones and keyboards need to be wiped with disinfectant regularly. This should be done because contamination on surfaces touched by employees and customers is one of the main ways that COVID-19 spreads.
Promote regular and thorough hand-washing by employees, contractors and customers. Put sanitizing hand rub dispensers in prominent places around the workplace. Make sure these dispensers are regularly refilled. Display posters promoting hand washing. These can be found on www.WHO.int
Combine this with other communication measures such as offering guidance from occupational health and safety officers, briefings at meetings and information on the intranet to promote hand-washing.
Make sure that staff contractors and customers have access to places where they can wash their hands with soap and water. According to the WHO, this is because washing kills the virus on your hands and prevents the spread of COVID-19.
The WHO also encourages good respiratory hygiene in the workplace. This includes displaying posters promoting respiratory hygiene. This should be combined with other communication measures such as offering guidance from occupational health and safety officers, briefing at meetings and information on the intranet etc.
Employers should ensure that paper tissues are available at their workplaces for those who develop a runny nose or cough at work, along with closed bins for hygienically disposing of them. Good respiratory hygiene prevents the spread of COVID-19.
The WHO also advises that employees and contractors should consult national travel advice before going on business trips.
Employees, contractors and customers should be briefed so that if COVID-19 starts spreading in your community anyone with even a mild cough or low grade fever (37.3C or more) needs to stay at home. They should also stay home (or work from home) if they have had to take simple medications, such as paracetamol/acetaminophen, ibuprofen or aspirin, which may mask symptoms of infection.
The WHO is encouraging workplaces to keep communicating and promoting the message that people need to stay home even if they have just mild symptoms of COVID-19.
Posters with this message should be displayed in the workplace. This should be combined with other communication channels commonly used in an organization or business.