The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in its global effort to improve countries’ preparedness, planning and response to public health issues among air passengers, on Sunday visited the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) to begin the assessment of medical facilities and personnel.
ICAO through its Collaborative Arrangement for the Prevention and Management of Public Health Events in Civil Aviation (CAPSCA) has been visiting different regions in the world.
The visits are to assess the preparedness of their aviation sectors and offer training sessions including several assistance visits to states and airports in Africa, taking into account the priorities established by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as contained in the International Health Regulations (2005).
In addition, the visit would promote and facilitate communication, cooperation, coordination and collaboration between the public health sectors in the handling of public health events.
To this end, a CAPSCA assistance visit would be conducted in Nigeria at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) from June 22 to 23, 2015.
The team would be evaluating the level of emergency medical preparedness of the various agencies operating at the Airport.
Last year, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa generated great concern and focused attention on the aviation sector due to some reported cases linked to air travel in Nigeria and other affected countries.
The agencies involved in the assistance visit are the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, (NCAA), Federal Ministry of Health/Port Health Authority, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, (NAMA) and airline operators (foreign and domestic).
Others are ground handling agencies, security agencies, including Nigeria Air Force, Nigeria Police Force, Directorate of State Security Services, Nigerian Immigration Service and Nigeria Customs Service, etc.
Team will also assess tourism agencies, including the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) and others.
At the Lagos airport, the following areas would be visited: Air Traffic Control Area Control Centre (ACC), Air Traffic Control Tower, designated aircraft parking position, airport and emergency operations centre.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”70560″]
Others are passenger screening location and facilities, suspect case and contacts interview and assessment location and facilities, affected ill passenger isolation and treatment location and facilities, port health and medical facilities and any other facility involved in public health emergency. The team would also assess a scenario of an aircraft arriving with a suspect case on board or a local outbreak.
“At the end of the two – day visit, the CAPSCA team, the State Public Health, Civil Aviation Authority including all Assistance Visit participants will meet for a debriefing and discussion on the preliminary visit results,” explained the General Manager, Public Affairs, NCAA, Fan Ndubuoke.
The Director General of the NCAA, Capt. Muhtar Usman, has called on all stakeholders to ensure maximum cooperation with the ICAO CAPSCA Assistance visit team during the exercise.(THE NATION)
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