A third person in Kenya has tested positive for Bundibugyo ebolavirus in the country’s first-ever cluster of Ebola cases, as the second-largest outbreak in history kills more than 4,300 and sickens more than 9,000 people in the region. It highlights the diminished role the US has played in the worsening Ebola outbreak by building a controversial quarantine center in Kenya, pulling back health support globally, and banning travelers from certain countries. All of this has also reduced the ability to identify and respond to the outbreak and exacerbated mistrust.
The US created a controversial quarantine center at Kenya’s Laikipia air base, where Americans returning from the Democratic Republic of the Congo would be required to quarantine. The center, opposed by locals, has stirred distrust in the Kenyan government, leading to protests and a Kenyan court ordering a halt to the center. The litigation will be decided in November, he said.
In the meantime, Kenyans are “very cautious around any information that is being given by the government around Ebola”, Maleche said. Americans who questioned whether the US has the legal authority to quarantine Americans on foreign soil and prevent them from returning home are pushing back against the quarantine center as Kenya faces its first Ebola cases. In previous outbreaks, actively ill patients have been evacuated safely to these centers, where they have recovered without further spread of the virus.
The unease follows sweeping cuts to US health support across the world, with the demolition of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and cuts to funding and staff at health agencies like the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). On 1 October, the CDC closed HIV prevention offices in Angola and South Sudan, with plans to close offices in Zimbabwe. The US has slashed programs across the world – including DR Congo, where the Ebola outbreak is centered, and other countries, like Kenya, bracing for cases as the outbreak widens.
It led to a lot of anxiety among people.” The US is now negotiating bilateral agreements with each country, including Kenya – a process that has been mired in secrecy, Maleche said. The US officially left the World Health Organization (WHO) in January, making it much harder to collaborate on the response to crises like these. When the US left the WHO, it also “pulled out a substantial amount of funding”, said Maleche.
That means the WHO’s response has also been “weakened”, he said. A Kenyan man fell ill in DRC before traveling by road to Uganda and then flying to Nairobi on 3 October, where he died in a hospital two days later. On Wednesday, officials announced that a close contact – reportedly a 39-year-old man who is a family member of the first patient – developed symptoms while quarantining.
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