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IATA Asks Airlines Not To Shun West Africa Over Ebola Concerns

IATA Asks Airlines Not To Shun West Africa Over Ebola Concerns

From Money Web

Airlines should maintain services to Ebola-hit regions which need connections with the outside world in order to fight the disease, the International Air Transport Association said today after more carriers put flights on hold.

The industry needs only to screen passengers at airports in infected areas, apply rigorous procedures including isolation when handling suspected cases, and fully disinfect planes afterwards, IATA, said, citing World Health Organisation advice that aviation constitutes a “row risk” for Ebola transmission.

“They have been very clear that travel and trade bans are unnecessary,” Raphael Kuuchi, IATA’s vice president for Africa, told the body’s Africa Aviation Day conference in Johannesburg. “Unless this advice changes we hope that countries working hard to eradicate Ebola continue to benefit from air connectivity.”

IATA issued the plea after Kenya Airways, Africa’s third-largest carrier, said this weekend it would stop flying to Liberia and Sierra Leone — which together with Guinea are the focus of the Ebola outbreak — tomorrow on the advice of the Kenyan health ministry. That’s after Korean Air Air Lines Co. said it would end flights to Nairobi on Aug. 20 because of the risk of infection spreading there via services from West Africa.

Cameroon ban

Cameroon also said August 16 it would no longer allow flights from Ebola-hit states, with Public Health Minister Andre Mama Fouda saying that “control has equally been tightened in all health districts, at the borders, airports and sea ports.”

Read more at  Money Web