South Africans are two weeks into our three week lock down period, and Rentokil Initial – as an Essential Services provider – has continued to work through this period, providing critical pest control and hygiene services to other essential services businesses. Our customers include healthcare providers, food manufacturers, supermarkets and other essential services, all of which are still operational during the lock down.
Whether your business falls into one of these categories and you are operational during lock down, or you are waiting to reopen your business when lock down finishes, have you considered what you would do if you have a suspected or confirmed COVID-19 case on your premises? How do you ensure that premises are safe for other workers once you reopen?
What is Rentokil Initial’s Specialist Disinfection Service?
Rentokil Initial has been hard at work over the last few weeks to formulate a central response to our customers’ needs for various levels of Disinfection Services. Specialist Disinfection has already been tested in Asia and Europe and is now being rolled out locally to meet the needs of our South African customers for Coronavirus Disinfection services.
In a previous blog post, I wrote about our Disinfection Service, but since that post went live, we have further refined our Disinfection service offering. We are now extremely proud to report that we have been given the go-ahead by our global head office to offer Specialist Disinfection Services. This means that we are now able to safely treat high-risk premises, where there are confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19.
What does our revised offering look like for our customers?
Our Specialist Disinfection Service is still an antibacterial fogging treatment that quickly and effectively eliminates disease causing pathogens including viruses, bacteria, yeasts and fungi, thus reducing the risk of illness and cross-contamination, but now it is tiered into 4 distinct categories, making us better able to respond to our customers’ specific needs:
High Level Specialist Disinfection Service:
This service is for those customers who need a highly specialised service because they’ve had a suspected or confirmed case or cases of COVID-19 infection on their premises within the last 72 hours. It requires a survey by one of our specialists, and includes ULV fogging of the space and manual disinfection of all touch points. This service requires our technicians to follow carefully assessed and globally approved safety measures: their safety and the safety of the general public is of paramount importance to us.
Intermediate Level Specialist Disinfection Services:
This service is for customers whose premises have been closed for more than 72 hours due to suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection, and reflects government guidance that, under most circumstances, the amount of infectious virus on any contaminated surface is likely to have significantly decreased after 72 hours. This service also includes ULV fogging of the space and manual disinfection of all touch points.
Precautionary Disinfection Service:
This service is for those customers who want a one-off precautionary clean to sanitise their premises, and is carried out only on premises there are no confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 on site. This is done by ULV fogging.
Contingency Survey:
This is for customers who want to be able to react quickly should a case of COVID-19 infection occur – by planning in advance how a Specialist Disinfection service would be carried out on their premises.
What is ULV fogging?
Ultra low volume (ULV) fogging is the use of extremely small droplets of a disinfectant, dispersed through a fogger, to settle on inaccessible areas. This enables the treatment of large areas in a short space of time. Once the technician has completed the service, the area that has been treated should be vacated for a minimum of 4 hours, to allow the product to settle and the fog to dissipate.
Health and Safety will always be our first priority and now, more than ever, there can be absolutely no compromise on this. Which is why our technicians are equipped with the most up to date and effective personal protective equipment (PPE) and respiratory protective equipment (RPE). They have also all been extensively trained on the safe and effective use of the equipment and chemicals required to undertake this service.
What Chemical Preparation is used in a Specialist Disinfection Service?
Rentokil Initial uses Steritech CAS; a broad spectrum disinfectant which is safe to use on all surfaces, including food contact surfaces. Steritech CAS has been proved effective against a number of major disease-causing organisms including E.Coli, Salmonella, Streptococcus and Staphylococcus. This product kills 99.99% of pathogens.
Whilst there are currently no products that have been tested for efficacy against COVID-19 (due to COVID-19 being a novel strain of the Coronavirus) Steritech CAS has been found to be effective against existing strains of Coronavirus, such as SARS and MERS.
Steritech complies to the following EN and SANS efficacy standards on;
- Bactericidal Efficacy: SANS 51276 (EN 1276) & SANS 53727 (EN 13727)
- Fungicidal & Yeasticidal Efficacy: SANS 51650 (EN 1650) & SANS 53624 (EN 13624)
- Virucidal Efficacy: EN 14476 (SANS 54476)
- Sporicidal Efficacy: SANS 53704 (EN13704)
- Mycobactericidal Efficacy: EN 14348 (SANS 54348)
Rentokil Initial customers can rest assured that the Specialist Disinfection service they receive from their local Rentokil Initial technician has been rigorously tested to meet our stringent global safety standards and strict standard operating procedures.
Rentokil Initial is open during the lock down period to provide critical pest control and hygiene services to our customers in the essential services category. So contact us today to book a disinfection service. Our call centre agents are working safely from home and are still able to assist you with a quote and with booking a disinfection service.
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