By Kemo Cham
Preparations are in high gear ahead of the reopening of the Lungi International Airport.
President Julius Maada Bio last week announced Wednesday July 22 as date of the reopening of the airport, four months since it was shut down as part of measures to prevent the entry of Covid-19 into the country.
The president also announced the reopening of places of worship, among other moves geared towards relaxing restrictions and to open up the economy.
Few days prior to the presidential address, on Tuesday, July 7, officials from the Sierra Leone Airport Authority (SLAA), the Sierra Leone Civil Aviation Authority (SLCAA) and the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) met to discuss modalities to institute safety and public health measures at the airport.
According to a news release from the SLCAA, the goal of that meeting was to address key emerging issues regarding the reopening.
It quoted the Director-General of the SLCAA, Moses Tiffa Baio, as saying that the aviation industry had had series of stakeholder engagements with the National COVID-19 Response Centre (NaCOVERC) and the MoHS for the smooth reopening of the airport. He noted that those engagements had resulted in the development of air travel process guide which would inform passengers, who intended travelling to Sierra Leone, on public health measures in place at the airport.
“During the meeting with NaCOVERC, we developed a policy brief with recommendations for the attention of the Presidential Taskforce. We have proposed that COVID-19 testing be conducted at the airport, and NaCOVERC has agreed to provide us with a mobile laboratory,” said Mr Baio.
He added: “The objective was to have a testing system that would be effective, efficient, and resilient to prevent a probable COVID-19 resurgence.”
The Civil Aviation Authority boss then went on to explain what they required of the MoHS in all this.
“What MoHS should help us with is to provide training for frontline workers, fumigate the airport, review passenger Health Locator Forms and set up the mobile testing system at the airport,” he said.
Sierra Leone is following on an international trend in reopening even as Covid-19 continues to spread unabated. The justification has been that while the objective of shutting down was to save lives, prolonged shutdown could be so counterproductive that it could cost a lot of lives.
But the problem has been the best model to ensure maximum safety.
For the SLCAA, the Rwandan model provides the best option. This model basically involves PCR testing before arrival at the Freetown International Airport (FNA). This would be followed up with a Resistance Temperature Detector (RTD) test on arrival in country. A key component of this is that the results of tests conducted are produced within 24hrs.
The World Health Organization (WHO) Country Office has been involved in the discussions and preparations for the reopening of the airport. Country Representative, Dr Evans Liyosi, emphasized to Politico what needs to be done ahead of the reopening.
“We want to ensure that before the airport is opened, we have provided our technical advice on what needs to be in the airport, including training, luggage handling, dealing with frustrations that can come whereby you have 100 people and you don’t know what to do with them, while journalists are with you,” Dr Liyosi said in an interview.
“So what we are telling the government…is do not open the airport when you are not ready. Have the necessary measures to protect the health workers, the cargo handlers and the people who are arriving, including testing and releasing the results within 24 hours. Knowing some people are coming to Freetown but others are going to the districts, you cannot afford to keep them hanging for long,” he added.
The SLCAA has assured that all health protocols, as directed by the WHO, will be observed. And towards this, the Authority announced following its last engagement that the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the telecoms operator Africell have agreed to provide “walk-through disinfectant channels and cargo disinfection machines” at the arrival section of the airport.
Africell is said to have offered to provide a mobile application that would trace and track passengers when the need arises.
Collaboration is the key to achieving great results, said Dr. Amara Jambai, Deputy Minister of Health and Sanitation 2.
Dr Jambai represented the MoHS at last week’s inter-ministerial discussion on the reopening of the airport.
“The hallmark of this inter-ministerial success is to flawlessly work in close collaboration with all parties involved to ensure activities are properly coordinated,” he said, adding: “Things are happening very fast and Sierra Leone cannot be isolated to such progress.”
Dr Jambia, who until recently was the country’s Chief Medical Officer, said Lungi Airport, as FTN is popularly called, is the face of Sierra Leone to the outside world and so the country must ensure that all the necessary measures were put in place to avoid public outcry.
At the meeting was also the Minister of Transport and Aviation, Mr Kabineh Kallon, who spoke on the ECOWAS mandate to reopen all sub-regional airports to scheduled commercial flight operations.
To this end, said Kallon, the goal to reopen FTN could not be achieved without close collaboration with his ministry and the other ministries, departments and agencies.
Chief Medical Officer, Rev Dr. Timothy Samba, also stressed on the need for collaboration, consistency, conformity, and commitment to achieve a positive outcome of the objectives of the preparation for the reopening of the airport. He suggested that an office space is provided for the MoHS at the airport to coordinate daily activities for prompt compliance.
Dr. Mohamed Vandi, Director of Health Emergency and Security in the MoHS, revealed that Infection, Prevention, and Control (IPCs) kits for the training of all frontline workers and for disinfection were ready and available for deployment.
But Dr Vandi noted that amidst the eagerness to reopen, three keys issues must be looked into: digitalising the Passenger Locator Forms to expedite the process of locating passengers, to conduct swabbing on passengers before they go through Immigration to minimize the chance of them avoiding the rest of the health screening process, and to ensure that test results are released without any unnecessary delay.
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