NAIROBI, Kenya — A Kenyan court on Friday blocked a U.S. plan to establish an isolation facility for Americans exposed to a rare strain of the Ebola virus circulating in northeastern Congo, following pushback from health workers and activists.
The United States plans to send Americans exposed to Ebola overseas to a new facility in Kenya instead of flying them home, a U.S. government official said Wednesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity about the administration’s plans. It is unclear where in Kenya the new facility will be built or whether the Kenyan government has approved the plan.
The Kenyan government only said it was in talks with the United States to help with Ebola preparedness, but did not mention the facilities. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that the U.S. government intends to commit $13.5 million to Kenya’s Ebola preparedness.
The High Court in Nairobi ruled on Friday that any deal regarding the Ebola facility will be blocked until a counter petition is heard on Tuesday.
The Katiba Institute, a group formed to defend Kenya’s constitution, and the Law Society of Kenya have separately challenged the existence of Ebola-related facilities. The Law Society of Kenya asked the court to invalidate the agreement signed between the United States and Kenya regarding the project, citing public health risks and lack of public participation.
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It also said Kenya lacks the “sophisticated containment infrastructure required to safely manage such facilities”, exposing the population to serious health risks.
Kenya’s doctors’ union on Thursday issued a 48-hour strike notice if the country goes ahead with the deal. The United States has made it clear that it will not tolerate Ebola on its soil, and therefore Kenya should not become another “dumping ground,” he said.
“As the pioneers of Kenya’s healthcare system, we are completely disgusted by the government’s willingness to trade national biosecurity and the lives of our people for foreign aid,” the union’s president, Dabuji Atela, said in a statement.
In northeastern Congo, resource-strapped health workers are struggling to contain an outbreak of the Bundibugyo virus, a type of Ebola virus for which no treatment or vaccine has been approved.
Since Congo’s government declared the outbreak on May 15, more than 1,000 suspected cases have been confirmed and at least 220 people have died. But the virus has been spreading undetected for weeks, and the WHO suspects its scale is much larger than reported.
The virus has also reached neighboring Uganda, where seven people have been infected and one death has been confirmed.
— Evelyn Musambi
