Ill-equipped: BKIA screens travellers for Ebola virus using a thermometer

Although fever is one of the early symptoms, checking for it manually is tedious and not always accurate.

PESHAWAR:

As countries across the world try to fine-tune their Ebola screening parameters and question their efficacy, Peshawar airport goes old-school with thermometers and stethoscopes.

Current recommendations being followed in the US, which is at higher risk, include taking temperature and filling out a questionnaire.



At Bacha Khan International Airport (BKIA), a six-member health team is conducting entrance screening (screening patients entering the city), but with a manual thermometer instead of a thermal scanner. This of course would have a higher margin of human error and would take more time instead of making travellers walk through the scanner.

“The thermal scanner at Karachi airport was not working properly which is why the thermal scanner at BKIA was sent to Karachi,” a health official told The Express Tribune. “They sent us a scanner but it is out of order so we check passengers with a stethoscope, a blood pressure monitor and a thermometer.”

The official, requesting anonymity, said screening for Hajj travellers was also conducted in the same manner. He said they had requested the federal government several times, but to no avail.

A team of six health officials which includes an assistant and a sanitary officer works round the clock, he added. Dealing with 75 weekly international flights while being short-staffed was causing many problems, he said.

“We check travellers like doctors do in outpatient departments where they check their eyes, check for fever with a thermometer and check their BP,” said the health official, describing the screening process for Ebola.  He warned such laxity could cause the virus to slip into the country.

Another official said there were fewer staffers earlier but then health officials deployed at Torkham border were asked to report at the airport. The health office which is situated further away needs to be shifted to the terminal building, the second official said.

When contacted, Dr Kashmala Orakzai, the airport health officer and focal person for Ebola virus in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, told The Express Tribune the federal government has been sent a list of important things which need to be tackled.

“We have informed the federal government and they have assured us they will ensure the required machinery in the near future,” said Orakzai.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13^th, 2014.