A Kenyan court has ordered the temporary suspension of a plan for the United States to set up an Ebola quarantine facility in the country after a lawsuit argued the site could endanger public health.
Senior U.S. officials said the 50-bed unit at an air force base in central Kenya would serve Americans who have been exposed to the virus but are still asymptomatic and would become operational on Friday.
According to the officials, patients who develop symptoms would be sent for care in other countries outside the U.S.
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The plan to bring in Americans exposed to the outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda has drawn sharp opposition among many Kenyans since it came to light earlier this week.
Kenya’s government provided written approval for the plan on Thursday but has not directly addressed it in public comments.
In an order late on Thursday, Kenyan High Court Judge, Patricia Nyaundi barred the government from admitting anyone exposed to or infected by Ebola under the planned agreement until a challenge brought by the Katiba Institute legal advocacy group was resolved.
Nyaundi said the next hearing would take place on June 2.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has said it “cannot and will not allow” any cases of Ebola to enter the country, unlike during the 2014 to 2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa when several infected U.S. nationals were treated on the U.S. soil.
The planned facility in Kenya is due to be staffed by members of the U.S. Public Health Service, a uniformed branch of the Department of Health and Human Services. More than 30 trained in Washington for three days and left for Kenya on Wednesday night, U.S. officials said.
Kenya has pushed for the facility to be open to all nationalities, not just U.S. citizens, but it is not clear if that will be the case. The U.S. State Department said on Thursday it would commit $13.5 million toward Kenya’s Ebola preparedness efforts.
Since the outbreak was confirmed in mid-May, there have been more than 1,000 suspected and confirmed cases, including 246 deaths, according to the World Health Organisation.
Health experts have warned that the real number of cases and deaths is likely to be much higher because of the late detection of the outbreak and difficulties tracing the contacts of suspected cases in eastern DRC, where there is widespread armed conflict.
Reuters
