Lagos State has launched a digital surveillance system to monitor travellers for 21 days, detect possible Ebola infections early and prevent the spread of infectious diseases across the state.
Known as the Lagos BioShield, the platform uses daily digital health checks and telemedicine assessments to identify travellers showing symptoms and ensure they receive prompt medical attention.
The state Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, disclosed this during a Nigerian Institute of Medical Research webinar titled Safeguarding Nigeria Together: The NIMR Ebola Webinar.
He said the initiative was designed to reduce the time between a traveller’s arrival, the onset of symptoms and the state’s ability to detect and respond to potential health threats.
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Abayomi said Lagos accounts for about 70 per cent of Nigeria’s international passenger traffic and receives nearly five times as many domestic travellers as international visitors, making the densely populated state particularly vulnerable to imported infections.
He explained that the BioShield operates through a digital Health Radar, which sends registered travellers daily health checks over 21 days, corresponding to the usual Ebola incubation period.
Participants are required to indicate whether they are healthy, experiencing symptoms or need medical attention.
Travellers who report symptoms are referred to telemedicine services for assessment and risk classification. Depending on their risk level, they may receive remote medical care, referrals to general hospitals or specialised interventions.
The system also provides logistics support to ensure medical assistance reaches affected individuals, reducing the need for potentially infected persons to move around the city in search of treatment.
The platform operates on the state’s Smart Health Information Platform (SHIP), which Abayomi said was being developed to connect healthcare facilities and improve information-sharing among health agencies and government departments.
He said Lagos was seeking to move beyond its previous “7-17” response timeline to a “1-1-1” approach, which would enable the state to identify a high-risk individual, verify an alert, collect a sample and obtain a test result within 24 hours.
Providing an early account of the system’s deployment at the recent CanEx conference, Abayomi said 19,247 delegates registered for the event, including 730 attendees from countries considered high-risk because of ongoing disease outbreaks.
He disclosed that 23 per cent of respondents to the digital health checks reported one or more symptoms, prompting follow-up assessments through telemedicine services.
However, the commissioner cautioned that the figures were preliminary, describing the deployment as a pilot project still undergoing development.
Abayomi recalled that during Lagos’s 2014 Ebola outbreak, the state had to trace nearly 1,000 contacts, a process that consumed considerable time and resources.
He identified delayed suspicion and detection as major weaknesses in outbreak response.
He said the state was also seeking access to health declaration data from passengers to improve surveillance of international and domestic arrivals, particularly travellers from countries and regions experiencing disease outbreaks.
According to him, Lagos is exploring sustainable funding arrangements involving the government, event organisers and delegates, including possible travel insurance contributions.
He said the ultimate goal was to identify infections before they spread widely, protect residents and visitors, and prevent a surge in cases from overwhelming the state’s healthcare facilities.
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