Kawasaki (Japan) (AFP)
Gloves, mask, face shield and protective tunic: this is the panoply of work of Naho, a young woman responsible for thoroughly cleaning hospital rooms occupied by patients sick with Covid-19 in Japan, with the fear of itself be contaminated.
"I am afraid at any time that I might catch it," the 21-year-old woman, who only wishes to give her first name, told AFP.
Employed since 2018 in a cleaning company, Naho has seen her profession evolve with the pandemic, gradually turning to disinfection missions linked to the coronavirus.
She started working in January at a hospital in Kawasaki, a suburb of Tokyo.
Equipped with alcoholic wipes, she polishes for seven hours every day every nook and cranny of the living rooms of coronavirus patients in her hospital, with efficient and precise gestures.
"At first, I had a period where I had trouble" with this new mission, adds Naho.
"It was really working me out not being able to do anything for these patients who were in pain and moaning in front of me."
The pandemic in Japan has been less severe than in many other countries in the world, with around 14,000 officially recorded deaths in the archipelago since 2020.
# photo1
But several waves of infections have put the country's medical system under pressure and forced the authorities to implement a state of emergency on several occasions, while complicating the organization of the Tokyo Olympics, which are to open. July 23.
When Naho started working at Kawasaki Hospital, it was just "a period when almost all the beds were full and the nurses who had to finish at 5:00 p.m. were doing three to four hours of overtime before they could go home." the chore of cleaning the rooms, she says.
"So they thanked me because I lightened their workload a bit."
© 2021 AFP