CNN called it “an apparent shift.” Rubio called it “a misunderstanding.” At a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Wednesday, the Secretary of State explained how the U.S. facility at Kenya’s Laikipia Air Base actually works: Americans exposed to Ebola go there for observation, and anyone who tests positive gets evacuated to Europe or the United States for treatment.
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“We’re not actually asking Kenya to set up treatment for Americans,” Rubio told senators. “There is a facility that the Kenyans are allowing us to open. If there are any Americans that are exposed, potentially exposed, they will be transferred to this facility for observation. If they test positive at any time while in that facility, we will remove them from Kenya and send them to the nearest treatment facility, either in Europe or in the home — or in the United States, to be treated for Ebola.”
Rubio said the facility exists so Americans near the outbreak zone have somewhere close for observation rather than boarding a long evacuation flight while symptomatic. NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya described the DRC region as “controlled by warlords,” and Rubio told senators the earlier Cabinet statement was about preventing unscreened travelers from entering the country, not blocking medical evacuation. Anyone who tests positive gets moved, including potentially to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, which handled American Ebola patients in 2014.
The administration announced the facility on May 28, staffed by the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service with 50 quarantine beds, 12 isolation beds, and four biocontainment beds. The first personnel were already en route as of May 29.
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The U.S. has committed more than $162 million to the response, the largest single contribution of any country, with an additional $13.5 million pledged to Kenya following a May 28 call between Rubio and President Ruto. During a CNN town hall Wednesday, Bhattacharya said another $107 million had cleared HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and was before Congress for approval.
On Monday, Kenyan police shot and killed two men outside Laikipia Air Base near Nanyuki as hundreds of protesters marched on the facility. Three others were injured.
Fredrick Ojiro, 38, coordinating the campaign to block the facility, told the media the protests won’t stop.
“If American doctors infected in Congo can be flown to Germany for treatment, why can’t American citizens be flown there instead of bringing the risk to Kenya?”
One American doctor, Dr. Peter Stafford, is being treated in Germany. A second, Dr. Patrick LaRochelle, is in quarantine in Prague and has tested negative so far.
High Court Judge Patricia Nyaundi upheld a previous court order on Tuesday and directed the Kenyan government to cease all construction and operations at the base while the case proceeds. She also ordered officials to disclose all agreements and operational protocols related to the facility before the next hearing on June 23.
The State Department had already said it was “optimistic we can resolve objections.” That statement predated Nyaundi’s second order.
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“When President Trump asked the government of Kenya to support them by having a center at Laikipia Air Base, I gave the OK,” Ruto said in a televised address Tuesday, the same day Nyaundi issued her order.
WHO declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on May 17. The strain is Bundibugyo, which is rarer than Zaire and has no FDA-approved vaccine. The CDC counted 344 confirmed cases in DRC and 15 in Uganda as of June 3.
Part of the reason those numbers climbed: early tests came back negative because responders were screening for the Zaire strain, not Bundibugyo. By the time DRC declared an outbreak on May 15, the virus had likely been spreading since February, Bhattacharya said.
The mayor of Mongbwalu, a remote gold mining town in Ituri Province, told reporters that 48 people in his town were dead within two weeks of a single coffin transfer at a local morgue. The next court hearing in Nairobi is June 23.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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