Around 100 occupational safety and health (OSH) specialists from the Indonesian Occupational Health Doctors Association (IDKI) actively participated in one-day ILO’s training on the prevention of COVID-19 pandemic at the workplaces. Held by end of July, the training, “Prevention of COVID-19 and Other Infectious Diseases at and through Workplaces”, aimed to strengthen the preventive measures of COVID-19 at the enterprise level.

During the training, the specialists learnt about methodologies and practices in assessing and identifying risk of infection at workplaces. They also deepened their knowledge on the transmission mechanisms of the pandemic and other infectious diseases as well as shared good examples of COVID-19 preventive measures at their workplaces.

“The contribution of the participating OSH specialists will improve recommended preventive practices to manage workplace safety and health,” said Michiko Miyamoto, ILO Country Director in Indonesia. “The training will also enrich the capacity of specialists in assessing risks of COVID-19 in more than 1,500 workplaces targeted by the ILO’s Enhancing COVID-19 Prevention at and through Workplaces.

Funded by the Government of Japan, the project facilitates a series of webinars to build dialogues and communications to maintain continued knowledge and strengthen capacity of relevant stakeholders to ensure business continuity and employment in the midst of a pandemic. The project will strengthen the capacity of labour inspectors, OSH professionals as well as representatives of enterprises and workers to effectively deal with today’s pandemic and other OSH challenges.

The training session invited Dr. Yuka Ujita, ILO’s Senior Specialist on OSH to provide a lecture on methods and control in handling infectious diseases in the workplace as well as in implementing effective early warning system. She highlighted four important topics: COVID-19 risk assessment and control at workplace, integration of COVID-19 response in the OSH management system, action points for safe return to work and key tips for OSH trainers.

She also recommended the utilization of the hierarchy of controls, a system that labels and prioritizes the risk controls from the most to least effective. “We have to start by enforcing the engineering and administrative control. We also need to promote changes in work policy or procedures to reduce or minimize exposures to hazard through the implementation of teleworking and shift arrangement, social distancing and good hygiene and infection control practices,” explained Dr. Ujita.

Abdul Hakim, ILO’s National Project Officer, concluded the training with the explanation of the project’s workflow of the risk assessment service, as well as tasks and responsibilities of the OSH specialists contributed to enable them identify infection risks in the targeted workplaces. “Prevention and information dissemination at workplace are key to address virus prevention beyond the workers and improve health literacy about COVID-19 that, in turn, will protect businesses, workers and wider communities from the spread of COVID-19 and will put the economy on a stronger footing for everyone.”