FG approves ₦45.08bn biosecurity system for five international airports

The Federal Government has approved ₦45.08 billion to install a national biosecurity and disease surveillance system at five international airports, as Nigeria tightens its guard against infectious diseases arriving from abroad.

Health Minister Ali Pate, who also coordinates the Ministry of Social Welfare, announced the approval after Wednesday's Federal Executive Council meeting chaired by President Bola Tinubu at the State House in Abuja.

The airports covered are Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Port Harcourt International Airport and Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu.

Pate said the five were picked based on passenger traffic, disease risk and spread across the country. Nigeria receives more than 18 million passengers through its airports every year, he said.

What the system will do

The project will run for 20 years under a public-private partnership with the BioHealth Consortium. Under the design, finance, build, operate and transfer arrangement, the private partner funds, builds and runs the system, while the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission supervises it. Ownership returns to the Federal Government at the end of the concession.

The equipment will include aircraft wastewater surveillance, air and surface sampling, portable laboratories for rapid testing at entry points, and screening of cargo and baggage for biological threats. A national surveillance operations centre will coordinate real-time data and response.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Port Health Services, the Nigeria Customs Service, the Nigeria Immigration Service and NAFDAC will share information through the system.

Pate said the approval follows lessons from COVID-19. "Since COVID, we have known that there are significant vulnerabilities in terms of public health threats crossing borders," he said.

He stressed the system is not built around one disease. "This is not Ebola. It is all pathogens of huge public health threats," he said.

Ebola patient recovered

The minister said the Ebola patient recorded in Nigeria in October has recovered and returned to her home country after treatment here. No positive case remained in the country as of the briefing, he said.

Contact tracing continues, with primary contacts quarantined for 21 days, the virus's maximum incubation period. Government is paying quarantined contacts ₦100,000 a week, a move Pate defended as necessary to keep people from breaking isolation.

"They have a livelihood, and you ask them to stay in quarantine. They have a family," he said, warning that people who evade quarantine could carry the virus into markets and infect others.

He said the payment would not apply if the outbreak reached community transmission, as seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

What happens next: The consortium is expected to begin deploying the airport systems, while health authorities continue monitoring the Ebola contacts until the 21-day window closes.