KQ adopts stringent screening process for West Africa passengers

Kenya: National carrier Kenya Airways has put in place additional measures to screen passengers as the World Health Organisation declared Ebola outbreak an international emergency.

Group Managing Director and CEO Titus Naikuni, said all Kenya Airways passengers travelling from Free Town, Monrovia, Accra, Lagos and Abuja will now undergo temperature checks at the points of departure.

Staff at these stations will be provided with handgun thermometres, gloves and hand sanitisers to conduct the screening, with all passengers required to complete a surveillance form while still on board to supply adequate information for traceability.

The disease has killed nearly 1,000 people in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Uganda said yesterday a patient stopped at Entebbe airport showing signs of fever, after arriving from neighbouring South Sudan, tested negative.

All passengers arriving at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport from West Africa and Entebbe, Uganda, and whose final destination is Nairobi, will now use a separate arrival gate where screening will be done before release to immigration officials, and into the country. Port Health, a division of the Ministry of Health responsible for disease surveillance and public health control at all points of entry, will regularly inform various County Health teams of persons that have travelled to their counties as per surveillance forms.

The additional measures by the national airline come as the WHO declared the Ebola outbreak ‘an international health emergency of international concern’.

WHO said a meeting of the Emergency Committee convened by the Director General agreed that the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa constitutes an ‘extraordinary event’ and a public health risk to other States. It also observed that the possible consequences of further international spread are particularly serious and that a coordinated international response is essential to stop and reverse the international spread of the disease.

“A coordinated international response is deemed essential to stop and reverse the international spread of Ebola,’’ WHO said in a statement.

The current outbreak began in Guinea last year and spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. As of August 4, there have been 1,711 cases reported, resulting in 932 deaths.

Under the additional measures instituted by Kenya Airways, all transit passengers will be ferried to Gate 3 at Terminal 1 C for screening before moving to their connecting flights.

The airline says adequate arrangements have been made to avoid delays and mis-connections, with Port Health officials being provided with flight details and expected number of passengers beforehand.

The measures have started being implemented and are in addition to other precautions taken like educating the airline’s staff, especially those on the ground in Sierra Leone and Liberia, on the disease.

The airline’s crew have also been supplied with Universal Precaution Kits and training on how to use them to ensure they don’t come into contact with body fluids.