The federal government has intensified efforts to ensure that Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) is not retransmitted into the country and therefore has activated all procedures to prevent infected travellers from gaining access to any of the nation’s airports.
To ensure that this objective is achieved, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and Port Health, a department under the Ministry of Health have increased surveillance on the screening of passengers for the deadly communicable disease.
Officials of FAAN at the airport explained that all passengers coming in from West Africa and other countries around the world are constantly screened by the thermal screening machines deployed to the D and E wings of arrivals at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos even without the knowledge of the passengers.
The Airport Regional Manager, South-west, Mrs. Victoria Shin-Aba in an interview with aviation journalists wednesday said that apart from the thermal screening machines, the agency also had public health emergency programme put in place for that purpose by the management.
She insisted that the facility was equipped and was up to the recommended standards of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and World Health Organisation (WHO).
Shin-Aba, however, disclosed that rather than the infrared method, which was a physical screening procedure used in the past, the government had moved up to adopt the thermal screening method, which automatically has erased the physical screening exercise and thereby reducing contacts with passengers.