Mozambique sets Ebola screening on the Malawi border
MAPUTO – Mozambique has set up disease checkpoints along the Malawi border as a precaution against any spread of deadly Ebola outbreaks, a senior health ministry official said.
More than 1,800 people have died in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo since an Ebola outbreak there last August.
Mozambique is yet to report the Ebola case, but the DRC’s regional neighbors have been on alert as the World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the crisis in a global health emergency.
The checkpoints have begun operating in the areas of Milage and Morambala in Zambezia province, and controls are expected to extend to other Mozambique provinces that share borders with Malawi, according to a health ministry official.
“The setting up of Ebola checkpoints is a guideline given by the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization to prevent the spread of the disease to other countries,” Zambezia province’s director of health, Jadeid Kasim, told reporters.
“The checkpoints are intended to monitor all people who enter Mozambique or have fever or if they have contact with someone who was in Congo,” he said.
“Depending on this control, we will determine whether there is a risk or not in our province,” Kasim added
