The Federal Government on Wednesday approved N45.08bn for a national biosecurity and response system across five international airports to strengthen Nigeria’s capacity to detect and contain infectious diseases at its borders.
This is as it defended its decision to pay each person quarantined in connection with the recent Ebola case N100,000 per week to secure their compliance with isolation directives.
The Minister of Health and Coordinating Minister of Social Welfare, Prof. Ali Pate, disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Bola Tinubu at the State House, Abuja.
The airport biosecurity project, approved under a 20-year public-private partnership arrangement with Biohealth Consortium, will cover the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, the Port Harcourt International Airport, and the Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu.
Pate said the project had been two years in preparation and was approved against the backdrop of heightened concern over cross-border disease threats, with over 18 million passengers crossing Nigerian borders through its airports every year.
He explained, “The Federal Executive Council took another step to modernise our biosecurity system at the point of entry. It approved the implementation of the full business case for a national biosecurity and response system at five of our international airports through a public-private partnership.
“The council approved the implementation at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos, Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport here in Abuja, Malam Aminu Kanu International Airport in Kano, the Port Harcourt International Airport, the Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu, through a public-private partnership arrangement in favor of Biohealth Consortium, a consortium of partners, in the sum of N45.08bn over a period of 20 years, this was a project that had been in preparation for two years, over the last two weeks, I think you realise the significance of enhancing biosecurity at our port of entry.
“Since COVID, we have known that there are significant vulnerabilities in terms of public health threats crossing borders, and the need for coordinated, technology-driven systems for early warning, detection, and response to emerging infectious disease threats.
“Improving biosecurity at the points of entry, particularly at the airports, is so critical to our health security, not only for public health but also for economic security, because when pathogens come and disrupt, economic activities also suffer.”
The system will deploy pathogen detection infrastructure including aircraft wastewater surveillance to track pathogens arriving on flights, air and surface biosampling units, and cargo and baggage biosurveillance technologies for threats that might otherwise enter undetected, said Pate.
He explained that a national surveillance operations centre will serve as a central command and control facility for real-time surveillance, data integration, incident monitoring, and response coordination. Portable laboratory facilities for field diagnostics will also be established directly at points of entry.
Participating agencies will include the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Port Health Services, the Nigeria Customs Service, the Nigeria Immigration Service, and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control.
He stated, “Every year, we have upwards of 18 million passengers crossing our borders through the airports.
“The implementation of this system will support evidence-based decision-making, improve inter-agency coordination, compliance with international health regulations, and our ability to deploy more advanced technologies beyond what we currently have through the existing public health services and the various agencies that are involved.”
The Minister added that “The structure is a design, finance, build, operate, and transfer. And under this arrangement, the private sector partner will be responsible for designing, financing, building, deploying, operating, and maintaining the structure during the concession period.
“While the Federal Government will provide necessary policy, institutional, and regulatory support and oversight to ensure that our national objectives are met, an open expiry of the concession. The system and the assets will revert to the control and ownership of the Federal Government in accordance with the terms of the concession agreement, as reviewed and endorsed by the ICRC, which is the regulator of such public-private partnerships.
“Under the concession structure, the private partner will design, finance, build, deploy, operate, and maintain the system for the duration of the 20-year period. The Federal Government will provide policy, institutional, and regulatory support and oversight. At expiration, all assets will revert to federal ownership under terms reviewed and endorsed by the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission.”
Pate said the five airports were selected based on passenger traffic, biosecurity risk exposure, and geographical spread.
He noted the timeliness of the approval, pointing out that Nigeria had maintained a task force at entry points for five months during the height of the Democratic Republic of Congo Ebola outbreak without recording a single case, until October 19 and 20, when the first confirmed Ebola case was detected.
Responding to a question on the payment to quarantined contacts, Pate said the measure was a targeted containment tool designed to prevent community transmission by removing the financial pressure that could otherwise drive contacts to abandon isolation.
He explained, “Our goal is to contain it. We don’t want to be in a situation whereby we have community transmission. The purpose of our measures is to ensure that her primary contacts, those she met once she became symptomatic, at the clinic, in the hospital, are all identified but also quarantined.
“If they evade quarantine, they go to market. They can transmit it to innocent people out there. So it is so vital that we get their compliance. Many of them, for instance, somebody who may have driven her from one place to the other, is a contact. They have a livelihood, and you ask them to stay in quarantine. They have a family.”
Pate warned that the payment model would become inapplicable if the outbreak reached community transmission, contrasting Nigeria’s current containment posture with the scale of the crisis in the DRC.
“In DRC, where there are thousands of cases, there is transmission in many places. Essentially, they will advise contacts to remain at home. There will be no need, because everybody has it. But here we have been extremely prudent.
“By no means will it be applicable if we have the unfortunate situation of community transmission. This is so that we have the maximum defence,” he said.
He noted that contacts were identified and placed under quarantine within hours of the case being confirmed, with some initially in home isolation before being transferred to designated facilities for closer monitoring.
“They need to be quarantined for 21 days. Ebola has an incubation period of between two and 21 days, and we want to be sure that they did not get exposed because they have a history of contact with her,” Pate said.
Pate added that keeping contacts in close proximity served a secondary purpose: enabling rapid secondary contact tracing should any of them test positive.
“If one of them is discovered to have contracted the virus, then because they are at hand, we can quickly circumscribe their own contacts so that it doesn’t spread.
“We are not taking any chances. We may succeed, or there may be an unfortunate one or two cases that may be affected. But if that is the case, we will rapidly get on top of it,” he explained further.
Pate confirmed that as of the time of the briefing, there was no positive Ebola case within Nigerian territory, with the original patient having recovered and returned to her home country following treatment on Nigerian soil.
“We are a large country, and we do not want to have Ebola circulating or other pathogens that may pose a threat to our population,” he stated.
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