The Kotoka International Airport (KIA) has been issued guidelines by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) spelling out some safety protocols for the resumption of international air travel in the advent of the pandemic.
Among the various concerns highlighted by the GHS which necessitated the notice, it identified overcrowding as one of the major issues influencing the spread of the virus. As a result it has proffered some measures to stymie the rates of infection during the easing of COVID-19 restrictions on flight travel.
According to the Ghana Health Service, KIA must demonstrate that it would not be a place for the transmission of the virus.
Chief amongst the four measures is for the airport management to ensure that there is no form of congestion at the facility at all times and strict adherence to social distancing and compulsory wearing of face mask protocols.
Correspondingly, they are to ensure there is no congestion at all sections of the airport (arrival, departure and environs) to fail adherence to social distancing protocols.
Coupled with compulsory mask wearing for all passengers (both arriving and departing) as well as staff, temperature monitoring to continue at both arrival and departure terminals must be prioritised.
Additionally, the Health Service placed much premium on social distancing and compulsory mask-wearing at the car parks and in front of all terminals.
It also assured the airport management of its highest form of cooperation to “develop the enabling protocols for ensuring passengers and staff safety.”
Recently, President Akufo-Addo hinted the country is preparing to reopen its airports to human traffic.
According to the president, “Under my instructions, the Ministry of Aviation, the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority and the Ghana Airports Co. Ltd., have been working, with the Ministry of Health and its agencies, to ascertain our readiness to reopen our airport.
“I want to ensure that we are in a position to test every single passenger that arrives in the country to avoid the spread of the virus. The outcome of that exercise will show us the way, and determine when we can reopen our border by air. I am hoping that, by God’s grace, we will be ready to do so by 1st September”.
Already, the GHS has said it was engaging various stakeholders to come up with modalities to ensure all persons who arrive in the country are tested for COVID-19 ahead of the possible opening of air borders in September.
On March 22, the President in his third address to the nation on measures government is taking to tackle the pandemic, announced the closure of the country’s borders.
He reviewed the directive on April 4, during the country’s 21-day lockdown when Ghana’s Covid-19 cases were rising.
The extension, he explained, was to ensure the importation of the coronavirus remains curtailed, while the government deals with the enhanced tracing and testing program that was going on at the time.
However, the President ensured that Ghanaians stranded in foreign countries were brought home.
