The International Organization for Migration (IOM) plans to expand support to the Bangladesh government in the screening of Covid-19 patients at points of entry (PoEs) into the country in the coming months.
IOM has been helping the government strengthen emergency health surveillance systems at PoEs since the beginning of the outbreak in the country, in line with the National Preparedness and Response Plan on Covid-19.
“The threat to Bangladesh remains the virus, not people. We are working with the Government to ensure the safety of migrants leaving or returning to Bangladesh by supporting measures to identify travellers with symptoms as they transit through points of entry,” IOM Chief of Mission in Bangladesh, Giorgi Gigauri, said in a press release.
“We strengthen the response capacity of authorities through reinforcing infrastructure, making PPE readily available to frontline workers, and by implementing responsive procedures that evolve as we learn more about how this virus is transmitted and how it can be contained,“ he added.
Since March 2020, with funding from the Government of Japan, IOM completed rapid needs assessments of eight PoEs, convened eight PoE Health Border Mobility Management (HBMM) task force meetings, arranged two ad hoc Crisis Management Team (CMT) meetings at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, and donated equipment to Communicable Disease Control Unit of the Directorate General of Health Services, to improve data and information management as well as facilitate communication.
They have also donated an ambulance to Shah Amanat International Airport in Chittagong, and personal protective equipment (PPE) and other protective materials to eight PoEs. They have supported the Government to develop two Standard Operating Procedures for management of travellers at airports and management of suspected COVID-19 cases in aircrafts. IOM has also installed health screening and support desks/booths at Dhaka Cantonment Railway Station and airport, assigning medical support staff to the airport in Chittagong. They have supplied Information Education Communication materials (900,000 Health declaration forms, 50,000 passenger locator forms, and 100,000 other screening forms), and trained 352 frontline workers.
On July 23, IOM provided health screening facilities to Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka. All inbound and outbound passengers are being screened at the health screening desks, where health declaration forms are being collected by staff from the Ministry of Health.
The semi-permanent health screening facilities installed at the airport are scalable and fitted with protective screens to ensure that screening staff are protected when questioning travellers and collecting passenger health declaration forms during border control operations. The health screening desks are open on a 24/7 basis.