Efforts by Nigeria to contain the out-break of Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, in the country, may come to nought as Vanguard investigations revealed that peoples move seamlessly through the nation's land borders without screening for EVD.
Though travellers at the airports are screened at the point of entry, nothing of such takes place at the land borders.
A visit to Seme border shows free movement of immigrants across both the Nigerian and Benin Republic sides of the border unhindered.
To worsen the threat, security operatives and others at the Seme border were seen performing their duties without protective gear like hand-gloves or infra-red thermometre guns.
Though officials of Nigerian Customs Service, NCS, and Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS were seen wearing gloves and Port Health Control, PHC, kitted and armed with instruments believed to be infra-red thermometre guns, they were not using them.
Most times, those wearing hand gloves and having other instruments were seen idling without putting their instruments into use.
However, officials of the PHC, NIS and NCS insisted that they were doing everything to ensure that victims of EVD did not come into the country through Seme.
One PHC official told Vanguard that they had instruction only to concentrate on passengers coming into the country in organised vehicles.
According to the official, most of those moving in and out of the country were Seme residents who cross the border daily.
He said every passenger or student coming into the country was made to fill a form which gives details of names, address, phone number, email, among others, to help track anyone suspected to have the virus.
Officer-in-charge of PHS at the border, Emmanuel Onile, told Vanguard that he was not permitted to speak on the issue and directed Vanguard to Ikeja where the director of PHS, Lagos State, Dr. Alex Okoh, has his offices.
However, a senior official of PHC attributed the easy crossing at the border from both sides to the fact that residents of Seme lived on both sides of the border (Krake Seme and Ponji Seme).
This, according to the official, was also supported by Economic Community of West African State, ECOWAS, treaty of free movement.
Personnel
The official explained that "all their personnel at the border are well trained and equipped to detect anyone suspected to have high fever. Because we are working in collaboration with other security agencies, the NCS at the border made available space close to its clinic to serve as holding bay in case anyone is suspected to be a victim."
Similarly, Customs Area Controller, CAC, of Seme Command, Comptroller Willy Egbudin, told Vanguardthat the service provided its officials of engaged in inspection of cargo with hand gloves for protection.
Egbudin explained that they were on the look out for bush meat being imported into the country, but stressed that so far they had not found any.
On the contrary, air travellers are mandated to undergo screening exercise at the points of entry in line with government's directive that all passengers passing through or arriving Nigeria through all the international airports must be screened.
The Federal Government had made it mandatory that all passengers passing through or arriving Nigeria through all the international airports must be subjected to screening.
Screening
This is aimed at preventing passengers from affected West African countries from importing EVD into the country after the unfortunate case of the Liberian-American, Mr. Patrick Sawyer.
Port Health officials have been deployed at all international airports to do the screening of passengers and are seen screening incoming passengers.
Speaking on the screening, Director of Port Health Services, member of the Incidence Management Centre, IMC, for the EVD and head of the committee on points of entry, Dr. Sani Gwarzo, said it was now mandatory for pilots to declare "any event in the air in case one of the passengers vomited or had diarrhoea or was bleeding or was sick or had high fever, or whatever event that occurs in the air; and also the passengers were mandated to declare their health status before disembarking."
On the ground screening at the airport, Gwarzo said the Federal Ministry of Health, had specially trained personnel at the airports that screen passengers' temperature with handheld infra-red devices, and plans were on to procure equipment that could mass screen passengers' temperatures.
According to him: "On a daily basis we screen travellers. Right now what we are doing is to use a hand-held device, which we call infra-red thermometer. It can point a laser-guided ray to the forehead or temple of a person and from a short distance we can check the temperature without touching the person.
"So as every passenger is passing by we check the temperature and if we see your temperature is high we pull the person aside and do further evaluation.
"A passenger is pulled aside when his temperature is above 37.5 degrees Fahrenheit and taken to the isolation room of the Port Health officials at the airport for further evaluation and possible transfer to a medical facility for proper laboratory test and medical examination and analysis by medical doctors."
Gwarzo also explained that manual screening of passengers had been challenging, saying, "this is cumbersome because we have to do it manually, one by one and we are also in the process of acquiring equipment that can mass-scan people as they are passing immigration. We are also introducing new regulations.
"In the past, aircraft on arrival at the airport were asked to declare "its health situation," which is called the "general declaration."
"Pilots, as they land, hand over health report aboard the plane to the Port Service staff. As soon as they are okay with the report, they declare the aircraft safe to open its doors in Nigeria for people to come out. But right now because of the Ebola issue, events can occur in the air even after the health status of the aircraft has been declared.
"The pilot is mandated to declare any event in the air, in case one of the passengers vomitted or had diarrhoea or was bleeding or was sick or had high fever, or whatever event that occured in the air. The pilot is mandated to report that to us and also the passengers are mandated to self declare.
"We want every passenger to declare his or her health status by filling a form. The form is so detailed enough to track somebody even several weeks after in his/her home-town.
Responsibility
It is also the responsibility of the Ports Health Authority at the airport to ask airlines to give them the manifest of passengers on board any flight that had a suspected case of Ebola virus. This is to enable them monitor all those that boarded the flight.
Passengers and airlines have expressed satisfaction with the precautionary measures by the Federal Government at containing the spread EVD.
A Nigerian passenger, from Gabon, who identified himself as Albert, said that he was aware of Ebola out-break and so he decided to submit himself to the screening.
"It is very good measure and it is also good that Nigerian government is trying to do something because of Ebola virus" he said.
The General Manager, Corporate Communications, Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, Mr. Yakubu Dati, said the screening was part of measures put in place by the Federal Government through the Ministry of Health to contain the spread of EVD.
He added that government would ensure that airlines at the point of departure would ensure that those infected by the virus were not brought into the country, saying "That means that airlines have to set up their own measures to ensure that those with Ebola are not brought into the country."
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