Kenya court suspends US plan for Ebola quarantine facility for Americans

A court in Kenya on Fri­day sus­pend­ed a U.S. plan to es­tab­lish a quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ty for Amer­i­cans ex­posed to a rare type of Ebo­la virus spread­ing in north­east­ern Con­go, fol­low­ing a back­lash by med­ical work­ers and ac­tivists.

U.S. ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials said on Thurs­day that the U.S. was plan­ning to send Amer­i­cans who are ex­posed to Ebo­la while abroad to a new fa­cil­i­ty in Kenya in­stead of fly­ing them home. The of­fi­cials spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to share the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s plans. They said the fa­cil­i­ty would be at Laikip­ia Air Base and would be op­er­a­tional with 50 quar­an­tine beds by Fri­day.

The Kenyan gov­ern­ment said it was in dis­cus­sions with the U.S. on sup­port for Ebo­la pre­pared­ness but de­clined to ad­dress whether the coun­try would es­tab­lish a treat­ment fa­cil­i­ty for Amer­i­cans. The U.S. gov­ern­ment in­tends to com­mit $13.5 mil­lion to­ward Kenya’s Ebo­la pre­pared­ness ef­forts, Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio said in a state­ment.

The High Court in Nairo­bi on Fri­day put a stop to any deal on the Ebo­la fa­cil­i­ty un­til pe­ti­tions against it are heard on Tues­day.

An or­ga­ni­za­tion formed to de­fend Kenya’s Con­sti­tu­tion, Kat­i­ba In­sti­tute, and the Kenya Law So­ci­ety sep­a­rate­ly chal­lenged any pres­ence of Ebo­la-re­lat­ed fa­cil­i­ties. The Kenya Law So­ci­ety asked the court to nul­li­fy any agree­ments signed be­tween the U.S. and Kenya on the project, cit­ing pub­lic health risks and a lack of pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion.

It al­so said that Kenya lacks “the high-con­tain­ment in­fra­struc­ture re­quired to safe­ly man­age such a fa­cil­i­ty, ex­pos­ing the pub­lic to se­ri­ous health risks.”

A Kenyan doc­tors’ union on Thurs­day is­sued a 48-hour strike no­tice should the coun­try pro­ceed with the deal. It said the U.S. was clear that they would not al­low Ebo­la on their soil and that Kenya should not be­come a “dump­ing ground.”

“As the van­guard of Kenya’s health­care sys­tem, we are ut­ter­ly dis­gust­ed by the gov­ern­ment’s ap­par­ent will­ing­ness to trade na­tion­al biose­cu­ri­ty and the lives of its cit­i­zens for for­eign aid,” the union’s chair­per­son, Davji Atel­lah, said in a state­ment.

Or­di­nary Kenyans have been an­gered by the plan.

“Why do they want to get in­fect­ed peo­ple and bring them to Kenya? Kenya is not a dump­ing area for such sick peo­ple,” labour­er Cedric Ak­weyu said in an in­ter­view with The As­so­ci­at­ed Press.

Stu­dent Wycliff Otieno al­so ex­pressed con­cern. “It is like the gov­ern­ment has been giv­en a lot of mon­ey by the U.S. So, it is like they are sell­ing us,” he said.

In north­east­ern Con­go, health work­ers with scant sup­plies have been strug­gling to con­tain an out­break of the Bundibu­gyo virus, a kind of Ebo­la that has no ap­proved treat­ment or vac­cine.

The Con­golese gov­ern­ment has con­firmed more than 1,000 sus­pect­ed cas­es, with at least 220 deaths, since it de­clared an out­break on May 15. But the virus had been spread­ing un­de­tect­ed for weeks and the WHO sus­pects it is much larg­er than what has been re­port­ed.

The virus al­so has reached neigh­bour­ing Ugan­da, which has con­firmed sev­en cas­es and one death. —NAIRO­BI, Kenya (AP)

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Sto­ry by EVE­LYNE MUSAM­BI | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ist Jack­son Nje­hia in Nairo­bi, Kenya, con­tributed to this re­port.