Following the lifting of the restrictions on domestic air travels, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) says it will not allow passengers who exhibit symptoms of the novel coronavirus to board flights at the country’s terminals.
In line with this, the GHS, In a letter dated April 21, 2020 and signed by the Director General of the GHS, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, has tasked the port health team to screen all passengers, staff of the Ghana Airport Company as well as all other users of the airport for covid-19 and other disease bothering public health.
It has also directed the port health team to report all suspected cases of covid-19 to the respective health directorate for further investigation.
The port health team, again, have been asked to ensure a strict adherence to all preventive protocols which include social distancing, the use of hand sanitizers, the wearing of nose mask and proper hand washing at the various terminals.
Other directives include the disinfection of any aircraft that arrives at the respective airport terminals.
Rational
Meanwhile, in an interview with Accra based Joy News, the Director of the Public Health at the GHS, Dr Badu Sarkodie, explained the directive is part of measures implemented at the airports to check the spread of the virus as domestic flights resume operations later this week.
Dr Sarkodie said wearing of nose masks by passengers will also be made compulsory.
“We will make sure that we screen the various passengers for signs and symptoms at the terminals which include checking their temperatures.
“We will ask if the people are coming from affected areas within the country with the use of a health declaration form because we know that internally, some areas have been identified as hot spots”, he said.
“We will trace to see if they have come into contact with any affected persons or non-confirmed cases and these people will be closely monitored. If a person however shows symptoms such as high temperature, coughing and sneezing and we think you will pose a risk to others we will have to restrain you from going on board but this will be done upon dialogue with the Airline operators, airport operators and general information to people in the airport,” he said.
Flight restrictions
Following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic in Ghana, the Government instituted certain measures to curb the spread of the virus in the country.
The initial strategy was to block the importation of the virus into the country and as result air travels from countries that have recorded more than 200 cases of the disease to Ghana was banned.
The air travel restriction was subsequently extended, but the government has since lifted the ban and flights are expected to be resume operations sometime this week.
attached below is the Ghana Health Service Letter
