The Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) has said the organization will soon set up isolation centres at the port as a preventive measure against the spread of the dreaded Coronavirus.
Speaking during a one day sensitization programme organized by NPA, for terminal operators over the weekend, the General Manager medical services of the NPA; Christy Akpa said the authority is already making arrangement for isolation centre to hold the people that are sick on board vessels to the isolation centre that will be created, whilethey bring in the state government that will isolate them and take them to isolation centres with dedicated isolation ambulances.
She added that the organization has also placed on red alert vessels that are coming from Asia, even as she maintained that the authority is fully prepared to combat the virus.
According to her ,“I want to assure the whole nation that NPA is well prepared to handle any incident of suspected case of Coronavirus on board any ship that shows symptoms of corona virus, we are highly collaborating with port health services of Federal Ministry of Health and we are also in collaboration with the Lagos state government through the commissioner of health and I want to assure everyone that we are screening temperatures of every port users.
“We are also working with port health to ensure that all the crew on board are administered the passengers declaration form and also we have develop a weekly log knowing the incubation period of this Coronavirus, so we don’t just scan your temperature, once like that, we are constantly monitoring and keeping this log on daily basis, even when there is no confirmed incident
“We have already heightened our alert on ships that are coming from Iran, Taiwan, China or any other countries that have been affected by this virus.
We are making arrangement for isolation centres to hold this people that are sick while we bring in the state government that will isolate all take them to isolation centres with dedicated isolation ambulances.
“We have already heightened our alert on ships that are coming from Iran, Taiwan China or any other countries that have been affected by this virus.
When this ship berth we don’t just leave them we continue to monitor until the ship sail out of our territorial waters it is mandatory that we continue to monitor to ensure that we fight this virus.” She said.
Corroborating her counterpart, the General Manager Corporate and Strategic Communications NPA, Mr Adams Jatto stated emphatically that the authority is on ground to fully combat the spread of the disease at the port, while adding that the collaboration between the NPA and the terminal operators will forestall the spread of the virus at the nation seaport.
“We are aware that the virus is spreading round the world in a very rapid form and of course there is need for us to curtail it, and we have been informed that there is no cure to this disease and the best thing for us to do is to have a precautionary preventive measure for us to ensure that it does not spread. So on the basis of this we have to call the terminal operators and of course the stakeholders for us to rub minds together and see how best we can do to curtail this menace.
“Of course, we have done a lot of things on the part of Nigerian Port Authority to ensure we preventive the spread of this disease, as we know the port is one of the entry points into the country, that is why we deem it fit for us to discuss what we have done and of course what is expected of the terminal operators for them to be able to curtail this menace.
“We have had collaborative efforts for us to fight this disease, we have seen what they have done, and the necessary medical materials are in each of the terminals.
“We have been told they have sanitizers’ as preventive measure for dock workers who access the vessels and there are things they said we should do which I believe the management will be able to take care of that” he said.
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