Lagos — International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) yesterday begun an evaluation of Nigeria 's two major airports: Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, to evaluate their readiness to check the spread of communicable diseases.
The examination is expected to take the ICAO team to both airports under the Cooperative Arrangement for the Prevention of Communi-cable Diseases by Air Travel (CAPSCA).
Chief of Aviation Medicine Section, ICAO, Dr Anthony Evans, said this when he led a team for the evaluation, adding that Africa was the second continent to be evaluated after Asia, in the quest to protect people's health.
The ICAO CAPSCA project leader, Dr Jarnail Singh, said the team would operate with a check list, explaining that innovations in regulations now demand a pilot-in-command to inform Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs) of any suspected case of communicable disease on board, instead of just the health authorities.
He said cabin crew must also be trained to identify some signs of people suspected to have such diseases on board.
Speaking at the event, Director, Aeromedical Stan-dards, at NCAA, Dr Theresa Bassey, said the global recession had created more challenges to African countries, but there was need to join the fight against spread of communicable diseases. She said increased sensitisation would help drive home the need to garner support of everyone to protect the health of the people.
In her contribution, FAAN's Director of Aviation Medical Clinics, Dr Morenike Kukoyi, said the nation's airports had developed a plan for communicable diseases control.
She remarked that although there was room for improvement, FAAN was collaborating with Ports Health Officials on the project, aimed at protecting health and welfare of the traveling public. Officer in charge of Health Emergency Response in the Federal Ministry of Health, Mr Adebayo Durojaiye, said the role of the Ministry in emergencies was keyed into that of the National Emergency Mana-gement Agency (NEMA), recalling that the nation, for instance, was very close to a pandemic stage of Avian flu when it was spreading over the world, adding that there was need for concerted effort to tackle communicable diseases at the airports.
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