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Kenya court suspends US plan for Ebola quarantine facility for Americans
Rights groups and doctors said the plan lacked public participation and could expose Kenya to grave biosafety risks.
Kenya's High Court temporarily blocked a Trump administration plan to establish a military-backed Ebola quarantine facility for American citizens, issuing an urgent injunction just as the site was scheduled to begin operations.
The proposed 50-bed makeshift field hospital was built at the Laikipia Air Base and intended to be managed by U.S. military and Public Health Service staff to isolate Americans exposed to a dangerous outbreak of the Bundibugyo Ebola virus in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.
Justice Patricia Nyaundi barred the Kenyan government from operationalizing the facility and blocked the entry of any infected or exposed individuals, enforcing a freeze until full legal petitions can be formally heard on June 2.
The legal challenges were filed independently by the Katiba Institute and the Law Society of Kenya, which accused the government of cutting a deal in absolute secrecy without public participation, parliamentary oversight, or proper biosecurity safeguards.
The plan ignited a fierce domestic backlash, including a 48-hour strike notice from the Kenyan doctors' union, whose leaders publicly condemned the deal and stated that the country should not be used as a foreign "dumping ground" for a lethal pathogen that the U.S. refused to bring to its own soil.