Kenyan High Court Blocks U.S. Ebola Quarantine Facility Agreement

A Kenyan High Court has temporarily blocked the government from proceeding with an agreement that would allow the United States to establish an Ebola quarantine facility on Kenyan soil for Americans exposed to the virus during the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Justice Patricia Nyaundi also stopped Kenyan authorities from admitting, transferring, receiving or facilitating the entry into Kenya of persons exposed to or infected with Ebola pursuant to the arrangement with the United States.

The Katiba Institute, a civil society group focusing on constitutional matters, filed the court challenge criticising the deal for unfavourable terms, with the Law Society of Kenya also asking the government to reject the facility.

“We will not sit back and watch Kenya be treated as a containment colony for a lethal pathogen that we did not generate. If it is too dangerous for America, it is too dangerous for Kenya,” one of the opposition groups said.

The authorisation had granted the United States access to land at an air force base in Laikipia in central Kenya, about 125 miles north of Nairobi, where a 50-bed quarantine unit was set to become operational as of Friday, staffed by members of the U.S. Public Health Service.

Kenya’s main doctors’ union and the Law Society of Kenya had argued the plan risked importing Ebola into a country that currently has no confirmed cases, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials in the United States also strongly recommended against the arrangement.

The agency’s acting director, Dr Jay Bhattacharya, reportedly advised against it, with some CDC officers described as furious and warning the plan would make recruiting and staffing for Ebola response activities harder.

Kenya had been pushing for the facility to be open to all nationalities rather than exclusively to American citizens, and one American doctor infected with Ebola along with several others exposed to the virus had already been evacuated to Germany for treatment and monitoring, while another was sent to the Czech Republic.

The facility arrangement forms part of a broader bilateral health agreement under which the United States will provide $1.6bn to Kenya between 2026 and 2030, a deal that represents a reduction of about $423m compared to previous U.S. funding levels over the same period.