The Ghana Health Service on Tuesday ordered temperature and symptom screening for all arrivals at Kotoka International Airport in Accra and at its main land crossings. The move followed confirmation that the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola had been detected in Nigeria.

The directive came a day after the Ghana Medical Association urged the government to intensify its Ebola preparedness. The association warned that heavy road and air traffic along the Lagos–Accra corridor left Ghana exposed. A statement from the Ghana Health Service said port health teams at the Aflao and Elubo border posts would also screen travellers and record their contact details.

The health service said it had placed regional isolation centres on alert and asked hospitals to review infection-control supplies. Laboratory staff at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research in Accra were designated to test suspected samples. The service also told clinicians to report any patient with unexplained fever and bleeding who had recently travelled from Nigeria.

The Bundibugyo strain poses a particular challenge because no licensed vaccine protects against it. The Ervebo vaccine, used in recent outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, targets only the Zaire strain. According to the World Health Organization, earlier Bundibugyo outbreaks in Uganda in 2007 and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2012 killed roughly a third of those infected.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said contact tracing was under way around the confirmed case. Public health authorities in neighbouring Benin and Togo were also reviewing border measures, according to statements from their health ministries. The WHO regional office for Africa said it was deploying experts to support Nigeria's response and would help coordinate surveillance across the region.