No quarantine, PCR tests on arrival… here’s Ghana’s plan for international passengers

August 29, 2020 10:20 am

Passengers arriving Ghana on international flights will be required to take an antigen test upon arrival at the Kotoka International Airport.

Business24 quotes Joseph Kofi Adda, the Ghanian minister of aviation, as saying 70 sample collection booths have been set up at the upper level of the arrival hall for passengers.

The minister said a laboratory has been set up at the airport to process the samples and transmit results electronically to the port health stations within 12 and 15 minutes of sample collection.

Upon arrival at the port health stations, passengers with negative antigen tests will be cleared to proceed to the immigration counter and admitted into the country.

However, passengers with positive antigen tests will be handed to health authorities at the airport for transfer to isolation centres.

Thus the minister said arriving passengers with negative antigen results will not have to be isolated for 14 days.

The tests will cost passengers between GH¢200-400.

After a tour of the airport facility, the minister said: “We have done our best, the service providers of GACL have worked throughout the night and we are hopeful that after the simulation exercise on Friday and Saturday, we will be able to open by September 1”.

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (pictured), the Ghanian president, was reported to have tied the airport reopening to the country’s ability to test each passenger upon arrival.

To achieve this, the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research at the University of Ghana has been testing a COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) detection kit that is to be used to test passengers at the airport.

In Nigeria, arriving passengers are required to take a PCR test within 14 days before travelling.

According to Sanni Aliyu, coordinator of the presidential task force on COVID-19, passengers who present negative PCR tests are expected to self-isolate for seven days and submit COVID-19 test results before getting unrestricted access.