To protect Nigerians, especially the travelling public from the rampaging coronavirus outbreak, the federal government has begun routine checks on persons entering the country through the nation’s airports.
The task is assigned to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), which has swung into action by directing passengers and other airport users to comply with all quarantine procedures at Nigeria‘s airports.
FAAN said yesterday that the move became necessary to prevent the spread of coronavirus and other communicable diseases to Nigeria.
In a statement issued by FAAN general manager, public affairs, Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu, the agency said that it had already taken proactive steps by ensuring that equipment and personnel used in combating the deadly Ebola virus in 2014 were still in place at the airports. Mrs Yakubu said that FAAN had always had thermal scanners in the airports that monitors the temperature of passengers as well as capture their pictures.
According to her, “when passengers walk pass the scanner, it registers their temperature and if too high, they are pulled aside for observation.”
Coronavirus, a deadly virus recently broke out in China and has since killed six people, with over 300 reportedly infected. The highly communicable virus has spread to border countries including Japan, Thailand and South Korea.
Yakubu added that FAAN, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health, had established the adequacy of the facilities at the nation’s airports to prevent the importation of the virus through the airports. „Passengers are, therefore, advised to submit themselves for routine quarantine checks whenever they are asked to,” she said
Already, some Nigerian travellers are apprehensive following the growing number of people infected with coronavirus in China and its spread to other cities in South East Asia.
Agency reports explained that coronavirus is a new virus in China that has not previously been identified in humans but now spreading fast with more than 200 cases, mostly in Wuhan, while the respiratory illness has also been detected in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Although, there is no reported case in Nigeria, some air passengers told LEADERSHIP yesterday that they were worried by the development, stressing that it was the same manner that Sars virus started and killed many people in the early 2000s across dozens of countries, mostly in Asia.
One of the air passengers, Peter Ajaro told LEADERSHIP at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, that he was sure that there was no reported case in the country. Ajaro, however, charged the authorities to be more vigilant as most passengers arrive into the country from South East Asia regularly.
Another passenger, Bilikisi Bawa, who said that she was yet to know more about the virus, simply said: „I heard it but I have not known much about the disease. All I can say is that we should be very careful.“