7 July 2020. Over the last two months, soldiers under the command of General Miglietta have worked to disinfect post-Covid 19 areas of hospitals in the Varese province.
These clean-up efforts have focused on various hospitals in the region, including the Busto Arsizio hospital (where work commenced on 6 May past) and the Saronno, Gallarate and Somma Lombarda hospitals.
Various teams were part of these efforts, with each consisting of 5 soldiers working under the guidance of a veterinary officer. The teams had the required personal protective equipment along with back-mounted sprayers and atomisers to sanitise operating theatres, laboratories and, especially, the wards used for COVID patients that will now be returned to normal hospital use. The highly specialised assets involved in this operation came from the NRDC-ITA Support Regiment: one unit is specifically skilled in disinfection, and one unit undertakes CBRN - chemical, bacterial, radiological and nuclear - tasks. The personnel in these units have gained extensive experience, including operating abroad.
We would really like to thank the men and women from NATO for their invaluable work that helps keep us all safe, explained the General Manager of the Varese hospital, Dr. Eugenio Porfido. The clean-up work forges a pathway to normality, giving us a sense of security and helping us to return our hospital to normal operations.
Since the end of February, when the first COVID-19 cases were uncovered in Italy, NATO soldiers have worked across the board with great care to battle the epidemic.
The men and women from the Milan NATO HQ have provided numerous services, including transporting healthcare materials from Malpensa Airport to various locations in northern Italy to re-supply hospitals, and transporting coffins containing COVID-19 victims to other parts of the country. These efforts are part of a broader spectrum of actions that Italian armed forces have undertaken since the very beginning of the epidemic - and continue to take - to support the civil protection service and local authorities.