Background: The International Health Regulation requires countries to establish measures at border entry points to prevent the spread of infectious threats across borders.
Objective: This study assessed the capacity for the detection of infectious threats to global health security at entry points in Benin in 2021.
Methods: This cross-sectional and descriptive study was conducted at 17 borders. Collection techniques included individual interview, observation, and document exploitation. Each entry point capacity was rated good if the entry point met at least 80 % of input criteria and 80 % of process criteria and 80 % of output criteria. The overall detection capacity was rated good if at least 80% of entry points had good capacity. Otherwise, the capacity was deemed insufficient.
Results: The capacity for the detection of infectious threats at entry points in Benin was insufficient. There was no entry point (0.0%) that reach 80% of inputs criteria. 11.8% of them reached 80% of process criteria and 5.9% reached 80% of output criteria. There was no entry point with good detection capacity. The travelers’ screening was not systematic. Only 19.4% of human travelers, 12.8% of food loads and 0.1% of animals were screened the day before the survey. Two alerts among human travelers, four among animals and one food safety alerts were detected. Health teams were present in all designated entry points, but they were only focused on Covid-19.
Conclusion: Strengthening the detection system and extending it to other threats is necessary to improve the detection capacity at entry points.