The Federal Government has commended the World Health Organisation (WHO), for providing both coordination and technical expertise by screening passengers at arrival terminals of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, to reduce the possibility of importation on COVID-19.
The Director of Port Health Services (PHS) at the Federal Ministry of Health, Dr. Morenike Alex-Okoh, gave the commendation during her technical review visit to the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos.
She further applauded WHO for providing additional personnel and technical expertise to support screening of passengers on entry to the country.
“WHO has remained a dependable ally to Port Health Services in strengthening human resource capacities for responding to public health events at the Points of Entry. This has remained true during this COVID-19 preparedness and response,” she said
As part of its support to the efforts of the Lagos state government to beef up Point of Entry (PoE) surveillance personnel requirement at the MMIA, the WHO has provided additional coordination and technical expertise to passenger entry screening at the arrival terminals of the international airport to reduce the possibility of importation on COVID-19.
The technical support activities by the WHO included handing over of self-reporting forms to passengers before they disembark the airplane or on arrival as per the protocol for screening.
The primary screening included review of the self-reporting forms, temperature monitoring by screening staff and a nurse responsible for observing passengers for visible signs of illness.
Any passenger who reports illness or exposure to confirmed cases or shows visible signs of illness will be further interviewed and sent to the secondary screening point for assessment by a medical officer.
The forms collected from the screening section are further segregated to identify passengers coming from places of interest, which are the countries with current local transmission of the virus. These Persons Of Interest (POI) details are captured in a database for further follow up on the symptoms of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) through phone calls.
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