In view of the Ebola epidemic in the Congo, the Federal Foreign Office is taking precautions to fly sick doctors and medical helpers from Africa to Germany. The Ministry of Heiko Maas (SPD) is planning to build special containers according to SPIEGEL information.
The "infection transport modules" designed by the health service of the office are four meters long, 2.40 meters wide and fit into every common cargo plane. The special containers are protected against a sudden drop in pressure on board and can be brought by truck directly to a special isolation station, for example in the Charité in Berlin.
In the first major Ebola crisis in 2014, the federal government converted an Airbus A340 from Lufthansa to the Ebola health center at short notice. However, the "Robert Koch" was decommissioned for cost reasons.
The EU has agreed to finance the container module in the amount of around ten million euros. Germany has applied to Brussels for a corresponding call for tenders. Due to the previous cooperation with the Berlin Charité and Lufthansa Technik, the federal government believes that the chances of winning the contract are good. In the future, all EU countries could request the evacuation modules for the rescue of their citizens.
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