The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo (SAN), has issued a directive for the 44 persons who came in contact with the Ebola patient in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to be placed on a no-fly list for at least 21 days.
Keyamo directed the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to pass the directive to all local and international airlines.
This followed a virtual meeting with the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate, on the Ebola scourge.
According to Keyamo, the health minister told him that the 44 persons came in contact with the Ebola patient at the hospital when she had developed the symptoms. The minister added that two additional people are her domestic staff.
Keyamo said on X, "Whilst efforts are ongoing to isolate them for now until there is certainty they had not been infected with the virus, the Aviation authorities are required to put them on a no-fly list for at least 21 days (which is the period that the symptoms are normally expected to manifest).
"I have therefore directed the NCAA to immediately inform all local and international airlines of this development. I have also directed the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to heighten Ebola response and surveillance protocols across all international airports. Measures already being implemented by FAAN include enhanced health screenings, temperature checks, travel history tracking, digital health declarations, and strict inter-agency coordination with the NCDC following regional outbreak alerts earlier."
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