Plans for Americans exposed to Ebola to be quarantined abroad faced mounting backlash Tuesday, with Kenya’s president defending a proposed 50-bed facility in the country after violent protests.
A Kenyan court extended its block on the establishment of the center at the Laikipia air base, while U.S. health experts and former officials said in an open letter to Congress that the plan to treat exposed Americans abroad raised “profound clinical, ethical, operational, and legal concerns.”
The Trump administration has said no exposed U.S. citizens will return home for treatment, as concerns mount over the growing outbreak centered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Asked about the issue at a White House news briefing Tuesday, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator, said that it would be better to keep the Americans close to the zone of exposure to expedite treatment.
“You have a golden hour of many of these instances around trauma, but for illnesses it’s also relatively short, so we are confident, and the State Department’s working on this diligently, that they are going to be able to work out something with Kenya. There has already been a fair amount of communication around this issue,” Oz said.
He added, “We have the — and that’s — there’s a U.K. base there, we have other people who might be willing to welcome us, and we have our German colleagues as well. So, there’s many places we can send folks, but sending them across the world, especially when we’re not sure what’s going on with them, is probably not the wisest move.”
A number of Americans are being monitored or receiving treatment in Europe after being exposed to the deadly virus in Congo or Uganda. But plans for a quarantine unit to be managed by U.S. staff members in central Kenya have drawn intense anger and fears it could fuel infections in the East African country.
Kenyan President William Ruto defended the proposal Tuesday.
“The quarantine facility being established at Laikipia Air Base with the support of the United States is neither unique nor exceptional, but part of a broader national preparedness system,” he said in a post on X.
“We are a responsible government. We know what we are doing,” he told reporters earlier, stressing that the facility was part of a long-running partnership with Washington and that it would also help Kenya in the event of an Ebola outbreak.
“When President Trump asked the government of Kenya to support them,” Ruto said, “I gave the OK because it was an agreement and a partnership with friends who have worked with Kenya for 30-40 years.”
The U.S. has pledged to commit $13.5 million toward its partnership with Kenya. But that has not stemmed local outrage.
Angry protests swelled Monday, including in the central town of Nanyuki, which is set to host the quarantine center. Police used tear gas, news agencies reported, while two people died of gunshot wounds after authorities opened fire, protest organizer Patrick Wahome told Reuters. Police and local health officials did not confirm any deaths.
A high court judge issued an order Tuesday barring the Kenyan government from taking any steps to build or begin operations at the facility before a resolution in the case.
The World Health Organization said last week there were more than 200 suspected deaths and 900 suspected cases from this outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, which has spilled over from eastern Congo to neighboring Uganda.
There’s no known vaccine or treatment for this strain.
The agency said Tuesday there had been 321 confirmed cases in Congo and 116 suspected cases, a significant drop in the number of suspected cases as hundreds were ruled out after investigation.
It said there had been 48 deaths and six people had recovered in Congo, while in Uganda there had been nine confirmed cases and one associated death, WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told reporters in Geneva.
Later, the Ugandan Health Ministry confirmed six new cases, bringing the total confirmed in the country to 15.
The Trump administration said it “cannot and will not allow” any cases to enter the U.S. That’s a departure from the U.S. handling of the Ebola outbreak in 2014, when several infected American patients were treated on U.S. soil.
“This policy raises profound clinical, ethical, operational, and legal concerns,” a number of U.S. healthcare officials warned in an open letter to Congress on Monday.
The U.S. already has a world-class network of biocontainment and infectious disease centers, “specifically designed for situations such as this,” it read. “At a time when outbreak response efforts are already strained, this is a dangerous precedent,” said the letter, whose signatories included disease physician Krutika Kuppalli, emergency physicians Debra Houry and Craig Spencer, and epidemiologist Anne Schuchat.
The White House says the planned facility will enable Americans exposed to the virus to receive care without the time required for medical evacuation.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the open letter, the court ruling in Kenya or the reports of protest deaths.
Later Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the U.S. would re-engage with the global vaccine alliance Gavi, which the Trump administration pulled funding from last year.
Gavi helps the world’s poorest countries to buy vaccines, so they can better protect children from diseases such as measles and diphtheria, but also works in outbreak response, including for Ebola.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic, said last June that the U.S. would no longer provide the group with around $300 million a year in funding because it ignored safety. He did not provide evidence to support his claim.
Rubio said Kennedy had taken a leading role in determining what was going to happen next with Gavi, but the State Department would now re-engage because “we need to drive this to an outcome.”
