In a bid to curb the spread of the deadly Ebola virus,
passengers arriving both from the domestic and international wings of the Nnamdi
Azikwe Airport, Abuja, Nigeria are now being made to undergo intense screening.
At least the government is doing all it can to curb the
spread that has already claimed the lives of two people in the country, with
ten others already confirmed as having the deadly virus.
According
to P.M.NEWS, the Federal
Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the Nigerian Port Health Services, a
division of the Ministry of Health, started the exercise at the airport last
Friday with passengers arriving from the Emirates Airlines being the first to
be screened.
It was gathered that another 200 passengers who arrived on
board Ethiopian Airline Flight- 911 in the afternoon were also screened.
The passengers comprised nationalities of Sudan, China,
Zimbabwe, UAE, among other African and European nationals. An official told
reporters that the exercise was now a daily routine at the international and
domestic arrivals of the airport.
The exercise, just like in other airports in the country, is
being carried out with the use of a special thermometer pointed towards the
passengers to take their temperature.
This is serious; please continue reading the rest of the
story
According to a port health official, “if your temperature is
normal, usually below 37 (degrees centigrade), you will be allowed to go but
anything beyond 37 you will be asked to step aside and you will be checked more
closely.”
Some passengers who spoke to our correspondent said there was
nothing wrong with the screening.
Some of them said the screening should have been done inside
the plane or targeted at passengers coming from the West African sub-region
where the virus is rampant.
A Liberian, Patrick Sawyer was the first person to test
positive for Ebola Virus in Nigeria.
The man was taken from the airport and put in isolation in a
local hospital, were he died on July 25.
Hopefully similar measure will be adopted at all our borders
with neighbouring countries.
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