RUCCI
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- Oct 6, 2011
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1400: Number of people killed by Ebola in West Africa since the disease broke out last December.
While countries around the world have heightened checks at entry points as a precaution against possible Ebola, Tanzanian authorities at major airports do not appear to be taking the matter seriously.
The Citizen on Saturday's checks in Nairobi, Kigali and Dar es Salaam established that it is only at Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA) that inbound passengers can enter the country without being scanned for the deadly virus.
Ebola is not a new disease but the current wave, which has extended its reach from West African countries to Spain and the United States, has raised the red flag in many countries--leading to improved surveillance, especially of passengers arriving from abroad.
This reporter recently travelled to Kigali via Nairobi and experienced how the three countries have been handling arriving passengers in the face of the risk of admitting someone with the virus.
Given that the region has no direct borders with West Africa, international airports are the main entry points for people with the deadly virus. It is critical, then, that most of the attention should be directed in that direction. Fever is one of the first symptoms to appear, so testing body heat is the quickest and most effective way of identifying infected travellers.
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) and Kigali International Airport use the standard gun-like thermometer to test the body temperature of arrivals.
In Nairobi passengers are required to fill a questionnaire on the route they took and their health status for the past two weeks.
The infrared thermometer is a non-contact equipment and uses a beam to take your temperature. "You will qualify as a suspect if my gun reads anywhere from 37.2 Celsius," a smiling nurse told this reporter at JKIA.
Those with lower temperatures have their passports marked with a yellow sticker that gives them access to other areas of the airport. The test takes about five seconds. To ease congestion in Kigali, there are three nurses with their guns pointing at the foreheads of arriving passengers.
There is no talking and they let you go when the number is not in the suspicious range. The situation is quite different at JNIA. When this reporter landed back home, there were only two empty-handed health officials standing at the arrivals gate asking the passengers where they were coming from.
Foreigners calmly responded to questions from the officers but holders of Tanzanian passports did so reluctantly, telling the officers that no one in the countries they travelled from wasted time with questions but rather used the guns.
"I'm from Entebbe and no one asked me anything," said a Tanzanian who did not even answer the questions and simply walked out of the airport. "They just pointed the scanner at me, checked my body temperature and let me go."
Three other Tanzanians refused to be questioned and helpless health workers let them go. "They are just wasting our time," lamented another local. "They are ill-equipped and what they are doing is wasting our time."
We approached one of the health workers after she was done with the "inspection" and asked how accurate what they are doing was. "We are specifically targeting those who are coming from West Africa," she said. "We have further questions and procedures for them, but we had none on your flight."
When asked about the passenger friendly gun-like thermometer, she said: "We have other superior machines that is a bit old fashioned. You have all been tested without knowing it."
When this reporter asked to see the superior gadget, the health worker dilly-dallied and then took off, saying she had a lot on her plate to deal with. But she confided: "We are really getting difficulties with some Tanzanians, especially those who are frequent travellers. They think they know it all…they ignore us."
Contrary to her comment that the infrared device is old school, the mighty USA earlier this month decided to deploy the device in its five international airports after being hit with two cases of Ebola.
Kennedy International in New York started using it as early as the first week of October followed by Washington Dulles International, O'Hare International, Hartsfield-Jackson International and Newark Liberty International.
"The screenings, which will include taking the passengers' temperatures with a gun-like, non-contact thermometer… screenings are the federal government's first large-scale attempt at improving the safety at American ports of entry, a measure many had called for after a Liberian man was treated for ebola in Dallas, the first case of the disease in the United States," the New York Times reported.
After six weeks with no new cases, Nigeria was last week declared free of Ebola by the World Health Organisation. That country has also deployed the device at all its international airports.
Source:The Citizen
http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/News/Da...40392/2507140/-/item/0/-/kclgqjz/-/index.html
