Nigeria: FAAN to install more thermal screeners to tackle coronavirus outbreak

The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has installed more thermal screeners at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos to tackle the coronavirus outbreak. FAAN aims to conduct an intensive and thorough screening to ensure all arriving passengers are screened.

The airport authority has also asked all arriving passengers to ensure they correctly fill forms given to them at the airport by officials monitoring the health status of passengers.

Victoria Shinaba, a manager at the airport, assured that the authority is capable to handle a confirmed coronavirus case. "When we have a suspected case, we have quarantine areas where we can quarantine the passenger for some time and if it is a confirmed case of someone coming in from a flight, we have another quarantine area on the tarmac so the person doesn't even have to get into the terminal to mix with other passengers," Shinaba added.

Nigerian authorities have contacted around 100 people who may have been exposed to an Italian man who is the country's first coronavirus patient, a Lagos state official said on Sunday, in a bid to stop an outbreak in Africa's most populous country. The case, the first in sub-Saharan Africa, has prompted fears the virus could spread quickly in Lagos.

President Muhammadu Buhari's spokesman, in a statement issued late on Sunday, called for calm. "President Buhari urges Nigerians not to panic about the news of this first case of Covid-19 in our country, as undue alarm would do us more harm than good," said the statement.