Leading airport services provider, National Aviation Services (NAS) (www.NAS.aero) signed an agreement to partner with global healthcare company, Abbott, to drive the implementation of Covid-19 rapid testing solutions at major airports and trans border lounges across the African continent and the Middle East. This partnership aims to aid the recovery of safe inter-country travel and passenger confidence.

Using its global network, local relationships and industry expertise, NAS will work with local authorities to deploy Abbott’s Panbio™ COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test Device and the ID NOW™ molecular point-of-care test system. Both these solutions offer quick testing for Covid-19, thus encouraging and facilitating safer cross-border travel. With the global aviation industry working hard to take off following the pandemic, solutions such as these will go a long way in helping fuel economies as more people resume international commerce and travel.

NAS has a presence in more than 50 airports, collectively managing over 100 airlines and 50 airport lounges in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Since the beginning of the pandemic, NAS has been driving efforts to implement digital solutions to help restart travel globally – especially collecting and verifying health data and ensuring authenticity of PCR test certificates of travelers.

Hassan El-Houry, Group CEO said: “During the pandemic, NAS has continued to partner with local authorities to utilize our airport expertise in passenger handling and technology to develop digital solutions that offer peace of mind for travelers, airline employees, airport authorities and the local government. Our collaboration in purchasing and deploying the Abbott’s Panbio™ COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test Device and the ID NOW™ molecular point-of-care system at airports across our network is aimed at continuing these efforts and helping restore passenger confidence to aid further recovery of international travel.”

Abbott’s Panbio™ COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test Device is a highly reliable, portable and affordable rapid antigen test, which has received CE Mark and WHO EUL and has been deployed in dozens of countries across the world. It delivers results in as early as 15-20 minutes with no instrumentation, providing a scalable and cost-effective solution for governments and private industry in efforts to restart international commerce.

ID NOW COVID-19 assay is performed on the ID NOW Instrument, which is a rapid molecular test that uses isothermal nucleic acid amplification to detect SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in direct nasal, nasopharyngeal or throat swabs. It provides results in 13 minutes or less. The ID NOW Instrument has a small footprint and easy to use graphical user interface for convenience within busy environments.

Both solutions can help save passengers and airport authorities or airlines considerable time and effort to get test results prior to departure or on arrival. They will also help curb the transmission of the coronavirus among passengers travelling together or through passengers arriving into the destination country. Passengers can thus travel with more peace of mind when on aircrafts or at crowded airports.