Seven American Aid Workers Quarantined at Contested US-Built Ebola Facility in Kenya

Seven American aid workers who had been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo fighting the Ebola outbreak are quarantining at a new isolation facility in Kenya after the US government introduced travel restrictions, the head of the charity employing them has said.

The aid workers are the first known people to quarantine at the facility, which has provoked substantial opposition in Kenya and sits at the centre of a legal case in which a court ordered the work suspended. Construction continued regardless, according to US officials and satellite imagery reviewed by Reuters.

Washington's new policy requires American citizens returning from DR Congo, where an Ebola outbreak is under way, to spend three weeks in a third country before entering the United States. The 50-bed bio-isolation unit being built on an air force base in central Kenya is intended for asymptomatic Americans exposed to the virus in DR Congo or Uganda.

That design is the source of the objection. Many Kenyans view the arrangement as the United States offloading onto Kenya a health risk it is unwilling to accept on its own soil. Last month, Kenya's health minister announced an immediate halt to construction after he was found in contempt of court for failing to observe an order to stop work pending a final ruling.

"Samaritan's Purse has seven American Disaster Assistance Response Team staff members there," Franklin Graham, president and chief executive of the charity, told Reuters. "None of them have any symptoms, but they are being quarantined by the Kenyan government for 21 days."

A US state department official said the group of asymptomatic Americans, who had served on the front lines of the Ebola response, had "voluntarily moved to the Kenya facility for precautionary monitoring and isolation". The official added that "Kenyan authorities have authorized their movement into the facility under the observation of the US public health service clinicians", and that the decision was taken "strictly out of an abundance of caution".

The Kenyan government's position is less clear. Health ministry officials did not immediately respond to calls or requests for comment, and a senior foreign ministry official said they had no information about the move.

A source familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named, said the group arrived at the site in central Kenya on Monday and were sleeping in army cots in tents. Some had treated Ebola patients at the Christian aid group's treatment centres in Congo, while others had carried out work such as construction with no direct contact with the sick.

"There is one potential high-risk exposure," the source said, adding that the group's health was being monitored and that Kenyan authorities are not allowing them to leave the facility to travel elsewhere in the country.

Reported from the Guardian.