Avalon Airport to introduce Covid-testing kiosks

Avalon Airport, owned by the billionaire Fox family, will be the first in the nation to roll out fever-testing kiosks.

Elenium CEO Aaron Hornlimann.

Avalon Airport, owned by the billionaire Fox family, will be the first in the nation to roll out fever-testing kiosks after the machine’s inventor won approval from the TGA.

Developed in partnership with Amazon Web Services, the so-called HealthGate uses artificial intelligence to detect the appropriate area of a person’s face for testing and then a sensor measures whether they have a fever.

Designed and manufactured in Australia, HealthGate offers automated health screening for entry into public facilities such as healthcare centres, event venues and now airports.

Victorian Premier Daniel ­Andrews this week flagged his government’s interest in building quarantine facilities at Avalon and Tullamarine airports for inter­national travellers.

Avalon chief executive Justin Giddings said the proposal would allow international arrivals to live in cabins near the terminal, and health officials could visit them outdoors.

The plan followed moves by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s proposal to use mining camps as quarantine centres.

Avalon Airport, owned by trucking magnate Lindsay Fox and his family, has struck a deal with Elenium to have 18 of the company’s kiosks installed in the terminal.

Elenium’s machines can be ­integrated into existing check-in and bag-drop facilities or at security screening checkpoints.

“One of the critical differences between HealthGate and other devices is the sophistication of our sensors,” Elenium CEO Aaron Hornlimann said. “Thermometers that are relied upon in the market simply measure a person’s skin temperature at their forehead, which only tells you the temperature of that single spot, not whether they have a fever.”

Mr Hornlimann made his name in the aviation industry by inventing Jetstar’s first text message boarding pass system in 2009.

“HealthGate takes accurate readings of specific areas on a ­person’s face, like the inner canthi or the tear duct, where the blood vessels are near the surface of their skin. This is more likely to show whether a person has a fever,” he said.

Any digital temperature monitoring system must be approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration as it is classified as a medical device.

Elenium received the TGA’s highest rating for its system.

Last year former PwC chief executive Luke Sayers’s new ­advisory and investment business, Sayers, joined the Fox family to partner with Elenium. Sayers is now trialling HealthGate at its ­offices in Melbourne.

During the height of the COVID pandemic, Elenium ­pivoted its airport check-in systems to add touchless and voice-activated sensors that can determine if a person is showing symptoms of COVID-19.

The company moved its technology into the aged-care sector for the first time through a deal with Nagambie HealthCare, a ­regional hospital and aged-care provider in Victoria.

A recent survey of 1000 Australians commissioned by Elenium showed 88 per cent of people said they were more likely to be honest about whether they felt unwell if they knew they would undergo health screening before being allowed entry to an event.

The survey also showed 83 per cent of those questioned supported the use of health screening technologies to help mitigate the risk for themselves and their loved ones.

“By combining the health ­declaration with fever detection technology, HealthGate will influence and drive behavioural change with the public,” Mr Hornlimann said.