Kenya Airways has announced additional precautions against a possible Ebola outbreak in the country.
In a statement released on Friday, the airline revealed that all passengers arriving at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport from west Africa and Entebbe, Uganda, and whose final destination is Nairobi “are now using a separate gate on arrival where screening will be done before release to Immigration officials”.
Other new measures include all passengers from Freetown, Monrovia, Accra, Lagos and Abuja having to undergo temperature checks at the point of departure. Staff at these stations have been provided with handgun thermometers, gloves and hand sanitizers.
OTHER PRECAUTIONS
All transit passengers will pass through Gate 3 at Terminal 1C for screening before proceeding to their connecting flight.
“Adequate arrangements have been put in place to avoid delays and misconnection,” read the statement.
These measures, according to Kenya Airways, are in addition to other precautions such as crews being provided with Universal Precaution Kits, up-to-date briefings from medical personnel before departure to or arrival from any west African destination and constant contact with the ground staff in Monrovia, Freetown, Accra, Lagos and Abuja.
TESTED NEGATIVE
Ebola has claimed at least 932 lives and infected more than 1,700 people since it broke out in west Africa earlier this year, according to the World Health Organisation.
On Friday, a man put in isolation in Uganda with fever tested negative for the deadly disease.
The passenger was the first to be tested in east Africa in the current outbreak sweeping west Africa, although Uganda has suffered Ebola outbreaks in the past, most recently in 2012.
The patient was stopped as he arrived at Uganda’s main Entebbe airport showing signs of fever, after arriving from neighbouring South Sudan, where no cases of the Ebola virus have been reported.
-nation.co.ke
