Nigeria Senate Orders Mandatory Ebola Screening at All Entry Points

Nigeria’s Senate has called for compulsory health screening of all international travellers entering through airports, seaports and designated land borders. The measures include temperature checks, health declaration forms and symptom screening, with enhanced checks for travellers who visited or transited affected areas within the previous 21 days.

The resolutions were adopted on Wednesday following a motion sponsored by Senator Francis Adedayo Faduyile, representing Ondo South Senatorial District. The motion came after the federal government confirmed an Ebola case in Abuja.

“Nigeria must take immediate action to prevent a similar situation.”

Lawmakers urged the government to release emergency funds from service-wide votes to support agencies involved in prevention and control. They also called for trained port health officers, thermal scanners, protective equipment and isolation rooms at all entry points.

The Senate said isolation and treatment centres must be ready across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. It also recommended exit screening for departing passengers during any declared public health emergency.

Senate President Godswill Akpabio raised concerns that a traveller from Kenya who tested positive for Ebola entered Nigeria without proper health checks. He said the traveller was not subjected to temperature checks or other screening procedures upon arrival.

Akpabio recalled Nigeria’s 2014 Ebola outbreak, when a Liberian traveller brought the virus into the country and a doctor who treated the patient died. He warned that 44 people had been identified as contacts requiring monitoring.

The lawmakers called for the Quarantine Act of 1926 to be repealed and replaced with modern public health legislation aligned with the International Health Regulations of 2005.