MOMBASA COUNTY: Kenya’s second largest international airport, Moi International, Mombasa, is now conducting a 24-hour Ebola virus screening.
Passengers arriving are to be subjected to screening before being allowed into Mombasa city.
Dr Khadija Shikely, chief health officer, Mombasa County, said yesterday that a team of medical personnel headed have been deployed to carry out screening.
Regular flights that land at the facility operated by Ethiopian Airlines, Rwandair, Turkish Airlines and Fly540 arriving from Zanzibar will have their passengers screened including the international charter flights from Kenya’s key source market of Europe.
Mombasa-based consultant physician Dr Chrispin Muyodi, will be overseeing the exercise according to Dr Shikelly.
"We have assembled a team of expert doctors specially trained in bio-hazard chemicals who will be in charge of the Ebola surveillance,’’ Dr Shikelly said.
Already, Tudor District Hospital outside the airport has a designated section for Ebola patients. Currently, eight nurses and six public health officers are stationed at the airport.
Additional staff to help those stationed at the airport from the Port Health Unit are being sought from the parent Ministry of Health.
"There is also going to be a standby ambulance to be stationed at the airport. We shall also have routine checks at the Mombasa seaport and Old Port harbour,’’ she said.
She said they have embarked on a sensitisation campaign on Ebola and will also be targeting airport staff who are the first people to come into contact with visitors for the first time.
Dr Shikelly made the remarks during a fact finding tour of the airport in the company of Mombasa County acting health executive, Tendai Lewa Mtana.
KAA Managing Director, Lucy Mbugua and Head of Port Health, Jimmy Tsuma, were also present. KAA is set to acquire a set of thermo scanners and will have two deployed in Mombasa to be used in passenger screening. At the moment, they are using gun thermometres.
