TITLE:
The Institut Pasteur of Côte D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) in the Emergency Management of Air Travellers during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Unique Experience in Supporting the Response Strategy in Côte D’Ivoire from 2021 to 2022
AUTHORS:
Blessa Jean-Claude Anné, Tchepé Flore Bernadette Diplo, Kouassi Bernadin Kouame, Serge Stéphane Yao, Koffi Julien Golly, Arouna Sidibe, Jacques Kouakou Kouakou, Serge Aoussi, Mireille Dosso
KEYWORDS:
COVID-19, Institut Pasteur de Côte D’Ivoire (IPCI), Air Travellers, Emergencies, Strategy, Hurry Computer Bug
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Applied Sciences,
Vol.13 No.5,
May
25,
2023
ABSTRACT: Since
its outbreak in December 2019 in Wuhan Province (China), the Coronavirus
(COVID-19) disease quickly spread around the world in such a way that most
response plans were outdated. There was an urgent need to change and adapt
response strategies as the virus globally spread. Entire firms and economies
were brought to a standstill in order to reduce the virus’ capacity to spread
and to limit some of the short-term impacts in order to save time and find out
solutions to come back to a more or less normal way of life. Thus, most of the
countries that closed their air, sea and land borders had to reopen them
progressively, with travel restrictions submitted to rigid controls. In Côte
d’Ivoire, as in all other countries, air travellers leaving the territory were
required to provide a certificate for a negative COVID-19 test, valid for 24 to
72 hours depending on the country of destination. However, the national system
implemented could not provide a result before 48 hours. The objective of this
work was to develop an alternative strategy to the system for air travellers
who were in a hurry and those who had a computer bug in obtaining their result.
A total of 38,444 air travellers benefited from this strategy implemented by
the Institut Pasteur de Côte d’Ivoire during these two years.