Nigerians fight COVID-19 by turning drums into handwashing basins

As the rest of the world grapples with the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, two young Nigerian furniture-makers are turning old metal drums into handwashing basins.

Bamigbose Adams and Emmanuel Ogbu are selling the recycled basins in Lagos in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Clean hands are essential for preventing the spread of COVID-19 but around 157 million Nigerians lack access to proper hand-washing facilities, according to a 2018 report by WaterAid, making it difficult to follow the World Health Organization advice on washing hands regularly to help prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Adams told Africanews the idea came to him after seeing the numbers of dumpsites around his area and the need to recycle some of the materials into something meaningful and essential to be used in homes.

“Since we have a dumpsite around us and some of them can be recycled to something very essential that people can use in their homes, so we came up with the first one which is tyre table and people accepted it,” he said.

He said that the team under the brand name “Above ground level” makes 10 of the basins a day by standard and has made hundreds of basins for various customers.

“Anyone willing to curb the spread of the virus is our customers, schools, hospitals recently we fabricated the handwashing basins to all the Federal Hospitals in Nigeria which was donated by Dettol Nigeria,” Adams said.

“We have done some kind of online training for people, we had people from the continent, we trained them online using videos, but in the future, we are looking at having a workshop where Nigerians can come and learn and see what they can do with things around them,” said Emmanuel.

The United Nations' Global Goal 3 project aims to ensure good health and well-being for all and Global Goal 6 looks to secure clean water and sanitation.

Proper handwashing is critical for preventing coronavirus infections but three billion people worldwide lack basic handwashing resources, according to the World Health Organization.