The Lagos State Government has stepped up Ebola surveillance at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), introducing measures to limit contact between passengers arriving from high-risk countries and other travellers without disrupting airport operations.
Commissioner for Health, Akin Abayomi, said on Sunday that the move is critical as concerns grow over the resurgence of the deadly virus in parts of Central and East Africa.
Speaking after leading a high-level inspection of the airport, Mr Abayomi warned that Lagos—Nigeria’s busiest international gateway—cannot afford complacency, particularly given its experience during the country’s 2014 Ebola outbreak.
The delegation included the Special Adviser to the Governor on Health, Kemi Ogunyemi; Permanent Secretary Dayo Lajide; and senior officials from the Lagos State Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (PHEOC). They were received by airport authorities, Port Health Services, FAAN, and the NCAA.
‘A bottleneck for the virus, not for passengers’
Mr Abayomi recalled Nigeria’s successful containment of Ebola after the virus was imported from Liberia in July 2014, crediting aggressive contact tracing and frontline health workers, including the late Dr Ameyo Adadevoh.
“Our objective is to create a bottleneck for the virus, not for passengers,” he said.
He identified early detection, rapid isolation, safe evacuation of suspected cases, and enhanced digital monitoring as top priorities.
Ms Ogunyemi, the Governor’s Special Adviser on Health, described airport workers as the first line of defence. “The frontline begins here at our ports of entry,” she said.
New infrastructure, high-risk traveller channels
Airport Manager Olatokunbo Arewa confirmed that touchless sanitiser dispensers and temperature monitors are being deployed, with dedicated arrival channels for travellers from high-risk countries under consideration.
Head of Port Health Services, Lawal Abdullahi, disclosed that the airport’s Public Health Emergency Contingency Plan was updated on 18 March 2026. Passenger screening data is already shared with state epidemiology teams.
The Aeromedical Assessor of NCAA, Abayomi Asunbo, said airlines on designated international routes must comply with public health regulations before passengers are admitted into Nigeria.
FAAN’s General Manager of Aviation Medical Services, Bilkis Ibrahim, added that additional personal protective equipment, multilingual health advisories, and staff training programmes are being rolled out.
No confirmed case in Nigeria
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention maintains there is currently no Ebola case in Lagos or anywhere in the country, but has urged sustained vigilance.
The World Health Organisation reports that as of 27 May, 906 suspected cases and 223 deaths among suspected cases have been recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As of 29 May, 134 confirmed cases—including nine in Uganda—with 18 deaths have been reported across both countries. One confirmed case, a US citizen treated in the DRC, is receiving care in Germany.
