Ebola: Southport firm leading the fight in global health crisis

Sales and marketing manager Paul Niklas said they had more than a hundred orders from global organisations and aid agencies, including the United Nations and the Red Cross.

He also said most of their workforce was dedicated to manufacturing the incinerators.
The larger ones can burn up to 1,000kg of waste an hour, smaller ones up to 400kg per hour.

Mr Niklas said: “We feel very proud of the fact that they have come to us and that we have a product that is part of the solution.

“Because this has to be contained at the source.

“As soon as you start trying to move waste, it can spread further and further.

“Our incinerators burn at 850 degrees Celsius which burns the toxins, then in the second chamber they burn the gases from that at 1,200 degrees so what is coming out of the chimney is clean.

“And our incinerators are mobile, too, so they can be taken to the source.”
Calls for the incinerators started a few months back when the Ebola crisis was just emerging. Since then they have manufactured and sold more than 120 incinerators to be shipped out to West Africa.

“Their engineers usually go out to help with installation but because of the Ebola threat, engineers employed by aid agencies and organisations are being sent to be trained up at the plant in Canning Road Industrial Estate instead.

Mr Niklas added: “They first contacted us when the outbreak began a couple of months ago. But we are geared up for these things, anyway. The last time demand was like this was the Iraq War. We’ve set up a separate plant so when it does happen we can manage it.”

British Army medics were sent to Sierra Leone yesterday as global leaders promised to step up the international community’s efforts to halt the spread of the disease which has so far taken more than 4,000 lives.

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