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Ebola Screening

Thermal scanners for int'l airports Decides inter-ministerial meeting

Staff Correspondent
As part of precautions against the Ebola threat, the government plans to set up archway thermal scanners at all three international airports in the country to record temperatures of arriving passengers.
"We will soon buy several thermal scanners. They will be used to measure temperatures of all passengers arriving at the airports," Health Minister Mohammed Nasim said at a media briefing after an inter-ministerial meeting at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport last night.
Civil Aviation Minister Rashed Khan Menon, State Minister for Home Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and officials of the ministries concerned attended the meeting chaired by Nasim, a health ministry official told The Daily Star.
It was decided that three archway thermal scanners would be set up at Shahjalal International Airport and several others at Sylhet and Chittagong airports, said another official who was present at the meeting.
At the briefing, Nasim said the government has already sought assistance from the World Health Organisation and the World Bank in this regard.
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All arriving passengers have to fill in forms giving details of their whereabouts in the last 21 days.
Urging people not to panic over Ebola, the minister said Bangladesh would successfully deal with it.
Dr Be-Nazir Ahmed, director (communicable disease control) at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), told The Daily Star earlier that the WHO is assessing the feasibility of installing archway thermal scanners at airports in Bangladesh.
Fever is one of the primary symptoms of Ebola infection. At present, medical teams use hand-held thermal scanners to detect temperatures of passengers coming from West African countries.
An archway thermal scanner can
measure temperatures of all passengers as they exit the airport through it, said Be-Nazir, also member secretary of the inter-ministerial monitoring committee on Ebola.
The latest government decision came amid growing concern over the spread of the deadly virus that claimed at least 4,000 lives, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria. The WHO has already declared an international public health emergency.
A US citizen died of Ebola last week, while two nurses - one in the US and the other in Spain - got infected.
The health ministry says Bangladesh is a low-risk country. But there is concern about nearly 500 Bangladeshi peacekeepers and some expatriates living in Liberia.
The government has put 25 air, sea
and land ports on alert since midAugust and assigned medical teams to check whether any of the arriving passengers is infected with the virus.
Despite the arrangements, six Bangladeshis returning from Liberia managed to pass through the Shahjalal International Airport without being screened on October 9.
This was one of the reasons behind the government's decision to buy thermal scanners, said Dr Be-Nazir.
The US has set up thermal scanners at five airports and the UK at Heathrow Airport.
With around 7,000 passengers arriving at Dhaka airport every day, it would be difficult to check temperatures of all of them and then run further tests on those with fever, said a health ministry official requesting
anonymity.
Many passengers, who are not travelling from West African nations, may have high temperature. If all of them are to be attended by medical teams, it would require more manpower and logistics. But there has been no discussion on the matter, according to theofficial.
It may take up to 21 days for an Ebola-infected person to show symptoms. The medical teams at the airports must check temperatures of all passengers from West African countries and keep data on their 21-day follow-up, the official said.
Meanwhile, Supreme Court lawyers Manzill Murshid and Eunus Ali Aka nd yesterday filed two writ petitions with the High Court, seeking directives on the government for taking measures to deal with the Ebola threat.