NAIA to maintain strict health measures until ’05

The Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) will continue to maintain strict health checks on passengers until 2005, Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) general manager Edgardo Manda said yesterday.

The health checks are part of a comprehensive action plan agreed upon by airport officials from various countries in a recently concluded aviation summit.

The objective of the plan, according to Manda, is to prevent Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and other diseases from entering the country within the next two years.

"We are still looking at the problem seriously since science has not yet developed a vaccine against SARS," he said in a statement.

During the aviation summit, airport authorities agreed to require arriving passengers to answer a health declaration card to facilitate the tracing of people with whom a SARS suspect may have been in contact. They also agreed to conduct a daily exchange of information through the Internet.

The aviation officials who attended the summit agreed not to refuse the entry of suspected SARS cases into their respective countries, but to treat them at hospitals capable of handling SARS cases.

Manda reminded local airport personnel to remain alert despite the World Health Organization decision to delist the Philippines from the list of SARS-affected countries because Hong Kong, Canada and other Asian countries continue to be affected by the deadly disease.

"We continue to maintain our stricter health policies. We will continue to do what we are doing," he said.

Manda added that he is considering implementing stricter health checks even at the domestic airport to avoid the transmission of SARS and other infectious diseases in the provinces.

"Can you imagine how difficult it is if a SARS patient is in the province, while the two major health facilities that treat SARS are located in Manila?" he said.

Though Manda has ordered a thermal scanner to be installed at the Manila domestic airport, he admitted that the machine needs to be calibrated.

"We received a technical report that it sometimes fails to take the exact temperature of a man by two to three degrees lower. We want to arrive at a perfect answer," he said.

Manda initiated the move to invite airport officials to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations + 3 forum on the prevention and containment of SARS held at the Clark Special Economic Zone, Pampanga last May 15 and 16.

He said there was a need to conduct a summit, not only to save lives and ensure public safety, but also to address the economic impact caused by the SARS scare.

Manda and aviation officials from Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea came up with a uniform protocol that would conform to international aviation standards.

They also shared information that would help prevent SARS and other infectious diseases from spreading through international air travel.

Manda said the Airport Council International, of which the Philippines is a member, will meet on June 6 to thresh out other issues that may affect the health and safety of the traveling public.