Florianópolis International Airport will be the first in Brazil to carry out coronavirus tests on passengers. The initiative is from the Florianópolis City Hall in partnership with Floripa Airport, the airport's concessionaire, and focuses on testing symptomatic passengers who disembark at the airport. Testing starts this Thursday (16/04).

Since March 21, all people arriving at Florianópolis International Airport have passed a sanitary barrier, with temperature measurement and completion of a questionnaire about their health status. Those who show symptoms for covid-19 are seen, evaluated and instructed to maintain isolation. Starting this week, symptomatic passengers will also be tested, at the airport itself, for coronavirus. Contrary to the rest of the country, which tests deaths and serious patients, Florianópolis adopts the model of mass testing, as was done in places like South Korea, which had good results in the fight against the pandemic. The objective is to identify new cases, isolate and monitor to avoid transmission and increase in contamination.

The tests were acquired by the Florianópolis City Hall and will be carried out by the Municipal Health Surveillance team. THE Floripa Airport will provide all the infrastructure for the tests: outpatient clinic for attendance and exam collection; refrigerator for storage of tests and collections; and with each test, the airport cleaning team disinfects the entire space used.

“A Floripa Airport fully supports the City of Florianópolis in this initiative. The entire airport infrastructure is now ready for the start of the tests”, says Ricardo Gesse, general director of Floripa Airports.

Currently, around 300 passengers arrive at Florianópolis International Airport per day.

A Floripa Airport, belonging to the Swiss group Zurich Airport, has already adopted a series of measures to contain the coronavirus inside the airport, such as sound warnings constantly sounding warning about the minimum distance of 2 meters, acrylic protection at check-in counters, alcohol gel spread throughout the terminal and airport disinfection routine with cleaning throughout the day at points of greater circulation and passenger contact at the airport.