Kenya’s health cabinet secretary on June 23 ordered construction halted on a U.S.-backed Ebola quarantine facility for Americans, a day after a court held him in contempt for letting work continue in defiance of an earlier order, ABC News reported.
The 50-bed facility at Laikipia Air Base, about 125 miles north of Nairobi, anchored a Trump administration plan to route Americans exposed to Ebola abroad away from U.S. soil.
Asymptomatic exposed citizens would be quarantined in Kenya, and those who tested positive would be evacuated to Europe rather than returned home, administration officials have said.
Kenya’s Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale appeared before Kenya’s High Court in Nairobi and directed an immediate stop to all construction and site work. The court accepted Mr. Duale’s apology and discharged him with a warning that he would face sentencing if he defied its orders again.
A Kenyan court in May ordered construction halted while it weighs a challenge from the Law Society of Kenya and the Katiba Institute, which contend the facility risks importing the virus and was set up without public consultation, according to ABC News. Work continued despite the order, and at least two people died in subsequent protests. The injunction now runs until a July 23 hearing.
The dispute leaves the U.S. strategy for exposed Americans unclear. Infectious disease leaders have urged the administration to use the nation’s existing biocontainment network, which they called purpose-built for such cases, rather than triaging patients abroad. The approach marks a departure from 2014, when several infected Americans were treated in U.S. biocontainment units.
The Bundibugyo strain driving the outbreak has no approved vaccine or treatment. Congo has logged at least 1,048 confirmed cases and 267 deaths, after cases jumped 38% in one week. Uganda has reported 20 cases and two deaths.
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