Seven American aid workers who had been in the Democratic Republic of Congo fighting an Ebola outbreak are now quarantining at an isolation facility in Kenya, after the United States government introduced new travel restrictions tied to the ongoing Ebola crisis, the head of the U.S. charity that employs them said on Thursday.
The aid workers are the first people to actually quarantine at the facility, a bio-isolation unit built by the U.S. government at a military air base in central Kenya specifically for Americans exposed to Ebola in Congo or Uganda. The site has become deeply controversial in Kenya, sparking widespread public opposition and an ongoing court case, with a judge having ordered activity at the facility suspended until a final ruling is issued. Despite that order, work on the Ebola facility has continued, according to U.S. officials.
Washington’s new policy requires American citizens returning from Congo, where the Ebola outbreak has been spreading rapidly, to spend three weeks in a third country before they are allowed to enter the United States. The Kenya facility was built to house exactly this kind of quarantine, but it has angered many Kenyans, who accuse the United States of offloading the health risks of caring for Ebola patients onto their country. Kenya itself has not recorded any Ebola cases during the outbreak.
Last month, Kenya’s health ministerKenya’s health minister announced an immediate halt to construction of the facility after he was found guilty of contempt of court for failing to observe suspension orders a local court had issued against the project moving forward.
Franklin Graham, president and chief executive of the Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse, confirmed that seven of the charity’s American Disaster Assistance Response Team staff members are currently at the facility. “None of them have any symptoms, but they are being quarantined by the Kenyan government for 21 days,” Graham said, describing the precautionary nature of the isolation period tied to Ebola’s incubation window.
A U.S. State Department official told reporters that the group of asymptomatic Americans, who had served on the front lines of the Ebola response in Congo, had voluntarily moved to the Kenya facility for precautionary monitoring and isolation. “Kenyan authorities have authorized their movement into the facility under the observation of the U.S. Public Health Service clinicians,” the official said, adding that the decision was taken “strictly out of an abundance of caution.”
Kenyan health ministry officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the matter, and a senior Kenyan foreign ministry official said they had no information about the situation.
A separate source familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the group arrived at the site in central Kenya on Monday and has been sleeping in army cots inside tents. Some of the workers had been treating Ebola patients directly at Samaritan’s Purse treatment centers in Congo, while others held roles with no direct contact with the sick, such as construction work at the aid group’s facilities.
“There is one potential high risk exposure,” the source said, adding that the health of all seven workers is being closely monitored for any signs of Ebola infection. Kenyan authorities are not permitting the group to leave the facility to travel elsewhere in the country while the quarantine period continues.
The episode underscores the deepening tension between the Trump administration’s effort to keep Ebola from reaching American soil and the practical and diplomatic strain that effort has placed on Kenya, a country with no Ebola cases of its own that has nonetheless become the staging ground for the U.S. response to the outbreak devastating its neighbor.
