The Trump administration is planning to send American citizens exposed to the Ebola virus to a quarantine and treatment facility in Kenya, in a significant departure from how previous US administrations have handled such outbreaks, multiple sources have confirmed.
Rather than repatriating exposed citizens to the United States — a long-standing practice in past outbreaks — the administration now intends to isolate and treat high-risk Americans on African soil. The facility, a coordinated effort between the Departments of State, Defence, and Health and Human Services, is still pending approval from the Kenyan government.
According to the New York Times, a few dozen US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps officers are already being trained to deploy to Kenya to staff the centre. Initially, the plan was to monitor exposed Americans in Kenya and transfer anyone developing symptoms to Europe for treatment. That has since changed. “But the administration now plans to provide treatment in Kenya as well,” insiders told the New York Times.
The decision comes as the Ebola outbreak — caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain — continues to spiral across the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. The World Health Organisation has declared the crisis a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, warning that containment efforts are being outpaced. The DRC has recorded 906 suspected cases, including 105 confirmed infections, and at least 223 suspected deaths. Uganda has confirmed seven cases and one death.
The Trump administration has also invoked Title 42, a public health law, to bar immigrants, lawful permanent residents, and some US citizens who have recently been in the DRC, Uganda, or South Sudan from entering the country.
Health experts, however, have raised serious concerns about the Kenya plan. “We know that their chances of getting through an Ebola infection would be higher in specialised units that have been designed to care for them,” said Dr. Tom Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency medicine physician who survived Ebola in 2014, was blunter: “Leaving Americans in Africa rather than bringing them home is a dramatic abdication of what we owe our own.”
The CDC has confirmed that no Ebola cases have been recorded inside the United States, and the risk to the general public remains low. Kenya, too, has recorded no confirmed cases, with over 55,000 travellers screened at border points.
Whether Kenya will approve hosting the facility — and what that means for the country’s own public health posture — remains to be seen.
