By Emma Farge
GENEVA/NAIROBI, July 17 (Reuters) – Seven American aid workers who had been in Congo to fight the Ebola outbreak are quarantining at an isolation facility in Kenya after the U.S. government introduced new travel restrictions, the head of a U.S. charity employing them told Reuters.
The aid workers are the first people to quarantine at the facility, which has sparked huge opposition in Kenya and is at the heart of an ongoing court case, with a judge ordering activity at the site to be suspended until a final ruling is issued. But work on the facility has continued, according to U.S. officials and satellite imagery reviewed by Reuters.
Washington’s new policy says American citizens returning from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there is an Ebola outbreak, must spend three weeks in a third country before entering the United States.
The bio-isolation unit, built by the U.S. government on an air force base in central Kenya for Americans exposed to the virus in Democratic Republic of Congo or Uganda, has angered many Kenyans who accuse the U.S. of offloading the health risk of caring for patients.
Last month, Kenya’s health minister announced an immediate halt to the construction of the facility after he was found guilty of contempt of court for failing to observe suspension orders issued by a local court against proceeding with the unit.
“Samaritan’s Purse has seven American Disaster Assistance Response Team staff members there,” Franklin Graham, president and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse told Reuters in response to Reuters’ questions.
“None of them have any symptoms, but they are being quarantined by the Kenyan government for 21 days,” Graham said.
A U.S. State Department official told Reuters that a 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.”
“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 calls or requests for comment. A senior Kenyan foreign ministry official said they did not have any information about the matter.
Another source familiar with the matter who asked for anonymity said that the group had arrived at the site in central Kenya on Monday and were sleeping in army cots in tents.
He said some had worked as medics treating Ebola patients at the Christian aid group’s treatment centres but others had worked in other functions with no direct contact with the sick, such as construction.
“There is one potential high risk exposure,” he said, adding that their health was being monitored. Kenyan authorities are not allowing the group to leave the facility to travel anywhere else in the country, he added.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; Additional reporting by Ammu Kannampilly in Nairobi and Maria Tsvetkova in New York, Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
Comments