COUNTRIES IN EAST AFRICA STEP UP EBOLA SCREENING
(Posted 07th August 2018)
The latest outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the second in the space of a few months, has led to a series of additional protective measures by neighbouring countries like Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and South Sudan.
Key to containing the spread of the deadly disease is to effectively police the often porous land borders, where the highest risk exists for a traveler to carry the virus with her or him across the frontier.
Informal crossings or the deliberate use of so called ‘Panya Routes’ are seen as the most likely scenario of ‘exporting’ the disease from an area which has seen continued armed conflict for decades now and subsequently regular movements of large numbers of people trying to escape the violence, now of course overshadowed by the Ebola outbreak.
Airports too have been reported to step up vigilance with health authorities staff deployed.
In 2014 and 2015, during the height of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, had all regional airports in East Africa instituted screening measures for all passengers, regardless of their airport of origin to prevent the spread of the disease.
