Seven Americans quarantining at Kenya Ebola facility after US travel ban, says aid group

A member of the M23 rebel group stands guard as provincial authorities visit the Rodolphe Merieux Laboratory, National Biomedical Research Institute, where samples from suspected Ebola cases are tested, in Goma, North Kivu province of the DRC, in May. Photograph: Arlette Bashizi/Reuters View image in fullscreen A member of the M23 rebel group stands guard as provincial authorities visit the Rodolphe Merieux Laboratory, National Biomedical Research Institute, where samples from suspected Ebola cases are tested, in Goma, North Kivu province of the DRC, in May. Photograph: Arlette Bashizi/Reuters Seven Americans quarantining at Kenya Ebola facility after US travel ban, says aid group Aid workers are first known people to quarantine at facility, which sparked huge opposition in Kenya Seven American aid workers who had been in Congo to fight the Ebola outbreak are quarantining at a new isolation facility in ⁠Kenya after the US government introduced travel ⁠restrictions, the head of a US charity ​employing them told Reuters. The aid workers are the first known people to quarantine at the facility, which has sparked huge opposition in Kenya and is at the heart of a legal case in which a court has ordered the work to be ⁠suspended. Construction continued however, according to US officials and satellite imagery reviewed by Reuters. Washington’s new policy says American citizens returning from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there is an Ebola outbreak, must spend three weeks in a third country before entering the United States. The US government is building ⁠the 50-bed bio-isolation unit on an air force base in central Kenya for asymptomatic Americans exposed to the virus in Democratic Republic of Congo or Uganda. Many Kenyans are angered at what ​they see as the US offloading the health risk such patients pose. Last month, Kenya’s ‌health minister announced an immediate halt to the facility’s ‌construction after he was found in contempt of court for failing to observe the order to halt work pending a final ruling. “Samaritan’s Purse has seven American Disaster Assistance Response Team staff ‌members there,” Franklin Graham, president and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse, told Reuters in response to questions. “None of them have any symptoms, but they are being quarantined by the Kenyan government for 21 days,” Graham said. A US state department official told Reuters a group of asymptomatic Americans who had served on the front lines of the Ebola response had “voluntarily moved to the Kenya facility for precautionary monitoring and isolation”. “Kenyan authorities have authorized their movement into the facility under the observation of the US public health service clinicians,” the official said, adding that the decision was taken “strictly out of an abundance of caution.“ Kenyan health ministry officials did not immediately respond to calls or requests for comment ‌on the move. A senior Kenyan foreign ministry official said they had no information on it. A