UAE disinfection programme in industrial areas to begin at 6pm

The UAE’s National Disinfection Programme will start two hours earlier in industrial areas and workers’ residential complexes, officials have said.

The santisation drive will be underway from 6pm until 6am in those areas, the Ministries of Interior and Human Resources and Emiratisation have clarified.

The decision comes after the UAE changed the timings of the sanitisation programme starting Wednesday, May 20, to run from 8pm until 6am. It was earlier beginning at 10pm.

Timings for malls and shopping centres were also changed – they can now stay open from 9am to 7pm.

Children under 12 and those over 60 will not be permitted to enter malls and shopping centres.

Food outlets, cooperative societies, groceries, supermarkets, and pharmacies will continue to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the sterilisation programme period.

Meanwhile meat and vegetable shops and outlets selling fruits, toasters, mills, slaughterhouses, fish, coffee and tea, in addition to shops selling nuts, sweets and chocolate, can operate from 6am until 8pm.

Read: Covid-19: UAE changes disinfection drive hours and revises fines

Officials called upon the public to avoid leaving their homes during the disinfection programme except in cases of necessity to limit the spread of Covid-19.