SA’s virus scanners ‘useless’ against coronavirus

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, has placed the spotlight on the security of SA borders and other African nations, which don’t seem to be faring too well as far as the prevention of infected people entering their countries are concerned.

According to an expert in the field of thermal scanning devices, most African countries are seemingly not prepared to prevent people suffering from infectious diseases, including those with the coronavirus, across borders, due to poor screening facilities at ports of entry.

Philip Smerkovits, managing director of one of Africa’s largest suppliers of thermal camera solutions, GoThermal, said he was concerned to learn that OR Tambo International Airport had “downgraded” to ineffective handheld thermal cameras to screen for abnormal body temperatures at terminals since last year.

This could not have come at a worse time, warned Smerkovits, who was urging the South African government, and others across the continent, to move with international trends at airports by using systems designed and calibrated for medical use.

He warned that the equipment at OR Tambo was not designed for accurate use on humans.

While no confirmed case of the deadly coronavirus had been reported in Africa, much of the continent was taking drastic moves to reduce the risk of the near pandemic spreading to its shores.

Several countries, including neighbouring Mozambique, have suspended travel to and from China.

Last week, South African Health Minister Zweli Mkhize announced that temperature screenings using thermal cameras would be conducted at 12 ports of entry, including OR Tambo.

But according to Smerkovits, the double threat of the equipment not being ideal for this purpose and the reliance on human discretion meant this system was not reliable.

“What happened here is that when the old system broke down, it was not repaired or replaced, probably because they decided it would be too expensive and they opted for a cheaper one.

“The old system was the internationally accepted one, because it was optimised for this kind of screening. Travellers could just walk past and the cameras would automatically screen the people and record the data.

“You can’t do that if you are using handheld cameras, which rely on the person operating it to decide if a person could be cleared. There is no accountability because the alarms are not recorded,” said Smerkovits.

He was concerned there was an increased number of African countries using cheaper handheld cameras in order to save money.

“The human body scanning camera they had before costs around R200,000 and has been replaced with R20,000 electrical inspection cameras because they didn’t want to repair them.

“They are using handheld which means if the unit is calibrated at one metre, for example, and you scan someone at 1.5 metres, you get the wrong reading.”

Recently the Ivory Coast also installed thermal imaging cameras at airports after becoming the first country to report a suspected case of the coronavirus on the continent.

The race for scientists to find a vaccine for the virus intensified last week when the World Health Organisation declared a public health emergency of international concern. The disease had already surpassed the Sars virus of 2002-2003.

According to China’s Health Commission, the death toll has reached 361 in the country, higher than that of the Sars outbreak, during which 349 people died in China.

South Africa’s health department had yet to respond to requests for comment at the time of going to press.

– simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.