JB and KLIA entry points to get thermal scanners

BY SUSAN TAM

KUALA LUMPUR: About 30 thermal imaging scanners will be installed by this week at entry points here and in Johor to screen travellers with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). 

Fourteen of the scanners would be installed at the Causeway in Tanjung Puteri, Johor Baru, where about 60,000 people go in and out of Singapore to work daily. 

Another 11 would be placed at the Second Link in Gelang Patah while five would be at KL International Airport. 

The scanners are expected to cost some RM10mil. 

Health deputy director-general Datuk Dr Ismail Merican said the system should be put in place by the end of the week and priority was given to the checkpoints in Johor and KLIA. 

He said the scanners have to be evaluated to ensure that they were not affected by the local weather. 

“If it is hot all around, then it (the scanner) will also become hot and this will be a problem in the Malaysian situation as the temperature can vary. 

“In Singapore, as far as I know, the scanners are located near the immigration checkpoints where it is air-conditioned,” he said at the daily SARS briefing. 

Singapore installed a similar system since mid-April to screen arriving air passengers from SARS-affected countries. 

Its immigration officials also take temperature readings at random on motorists at their Woodlands and Tuas checkpoints. 

Dr Ismail said the ministry had carried out an evaluation of the different types of scanners, including those that read temperatures without a person having to stop. 

 

“Other scanners would require people to remain in one spot for a few seconds before their temperature could be recorded,” he added. 

 

On whether Malaysian health officials would conduct manual temperature checks on travellers at the Causeway and Second Link, he said it would be done as long as people declare in their health declaration card that they had fever. 

 

“He added that the system would help 'catch' sick persons who could slip through the screening process,” he said.