Ethiopian Airlines passengers entered Mozambique without being tested for Covid-19 | A Verdade

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Ethiopian Airlines passengers entered Mozambique without being tested for Covid-19 | A Verdade

3:37 CAT | 08 May 2020

Photo: A Verdade

More than 30 passengers from countries with active Covid-19 transmission arrived at Mavalane International Airport in Maputo last Monday (May 4) on a regular Ethiopian Airlines flight, and entered Mozambique without being subjected to any health vetting.

“The ground teams were not organised and, in fact, the people were not tested,” National Director of Public Health Dr Rosa Marlene admitted.

Since the declaration of the State of Emergency in Mozambique, and with the worsening of the pandemic around the world, only Ethiopian Airlines continues to operate scheduled flights to Mozambique.

On Monday (04), an Airbus A350-941 flight number ET819 from Addis Ababa landed in Maputo City at 3:14 p.m., carrying dozens of national and foreign passengers coming, not from Ethiopia, but from different countries around the globe. They completed their immigration procedures and left Mavalane International Airport, some connecting flights to the provinces.

Asked by @Verdade why these passengers, from countries with high active transmission of the new coronavirus, were not subjected to any tests or approached by any health official to determine their travel history and impose the mandatory home quarantine established in the Presidential Decree of Declaration of the State of Emergency, Dr Marlene said: “Regarding the Ethiopian Airlines flight, what happened is that there was a problem in the flight communication. In principle, the flights are reduced, so when this Ethiopian Airlines flight arrived, the ground crew were not organised and, in fact, the people were not tested”.

“We are currently working with the Ministry of Health, the City health directorate, Migration Services and the airline itself, to locate the passengers. We have already managed to locate most of them, and they are being tested. It is true that some are already in the provinces, but we are contacting the provincial health delegations in order to locate them,” she added at the press conference yesterday (Thursday 07).

Reminded by @Verdade that all 215 travellers on a flight from Portugal had been tested for Covid-19 and submitted to quarantine, Dr Marlene admitted that “there is no difference in procedure, but, in the case of the TAP flight, there was a timely communication to the authorities, including health [authorities], and we were organised to receive the passengers. With the Ethiopian Airlines flight, there was a problem of timely communication that we are trying to correct”. Dr Marlene also acknowledged that she was unsure how many ET819 travellers entered Mozambique. “I think there were 31 people on the flight,” she said.

However, the National Director of Public Health missed the fact that the ET819 was a regular flight, awaited by the airport authorities at Mavalane International Airport, and was even about two hours late. @Verdade has learned that the flight continued on to South Africa after its stopover in Maputo.

By Adérito Caldeira

Source: A Verdade