Ebola: Ghana must track incoming travellers, not rely on temperature checks – Prof Amuasi

Ghana must prioritise effective surveillance and the tracking of incoming travellers in its preparations against Ebola, rather than rely heavily on temperature checks and hand sanitisers at airports, a public health expert has warned. Professor John Amuasi, Head of Global Health at the School of Public Health, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), said visible screening measures offered limited assurance because people infected with the virus might not show symptoms when they arrived in the country. He said the country’s preparedness should focus on collecting accurate information on travellers, verifying their contact details and ensuring they could be reached quickly if they developed symptoms after arrival.

Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express on Monday, October 26, Professor Amuasi said Ghana needed to strengthen its surveillance systems to identify and follow up on people who might have been exposed to the virus. His comments come amid concerns about the risk of cross-border transmission as African countries respond to Ebola cases and strengthen measures to prevent further spread. Professor Amuasi, who is also a research leader at the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR), said the experience of recent cases underscored the importance of surveillance at points of entry and the ability to follow up on travellers after they had entered a country.

Surveillance beyond the airport The professor said airport screening could not, on its own, reliably identify all infected travellers, particularly those who were not yet showing symptoms. He said measures such as temperature checks and hand sanitiser stations could reassure the public but should not be mistaken for a comprehensive system for detecting Ebola. “What I was trying to explain was that it’s easy to put a bunch of measures in place at the airport, you know, these temperature checks and doing the hand sanitiser thing, but there’s a little bit to which this is helpful.

He stressed that the absence of visible symptoms did not necessarily mean a traveller posed no public health concern, making follow-up systems an important part of outbreak preparedness. “Nobody is going to be coming off an aeroplane, in… Prof John Amuasi, Global Health Lead at the KCC, warned that airport temperature checks will not catch Ebola cases.

He wants Ghana to prioritise accurate passenger records and reliable ways to trace arrivals. Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express on Monday, he said visible screening measures offer reassurance but have limited value in detecting infected travellers. “Temperature checks, use of alcohol and rubs, all these things are nice.

They give people some level of confidence, but the reality is that they are not going to catch Ebola cases for you,” he said. Prof Amuasi said people visibly sick with Ebola symptoms were unlikely to board aircraft. That limits what officials can detect when passengers arrive.