Ebola scare: visitors from Sierra Leone confess entering Ghana unscreened

Nine passengers from Ebola stricken Sierra Leone Friday, claim they were not screened on arrival at the Kotoka International Airport.

According to one of them, they handed over their passports to Immigration officials at the counter and after going through the necessary checks, and were allowed to go without any screening.

They had returned from Sierra Leone where they work for a mining company.

“And after checking; we ended up collecting our luggage and then left the airport. No one screened us; nothing of that sort happened; there was no screening at all,” he told Joy News' Joseph Opoku Gakpo.

He said even though they told the Immigration officers they were coming from Sierra Leone, the officers did not deem it necessary to have them screened and allowed them entry into Ghana.

“I was even expecting screening for the nine of us considering the Ebola situation in that country but there was nothing of that sort,” he said.

They transited through Senegal to Accra in one day.

Head of Health and Safety Department of the mining company, which has operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone, said he was alarmed when his colleagues told him they were not screened at the airport.

Tawiah Agyei said he was told it is only passengers of direct flights from the Ebola hit countries, who are screened.

He, however, urged the port authorities to update whatever systems are being used to have every passenger go through the process of screening.