Experts criticise plan for American-only Ebola quarantine centre in Kenya

Plan departs from policy of bringing CDC staff back to US for treatment and offering support to all health workers

Former top US officials and other experts are urging the Trump administration to abandon plans for an Ebola quarantine and treatment centre in Kenya , as the union for workers with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls for Americans exposed to Ebola to be brought home for treatment.

Soon after the US revealed it was setting up a field hospital in Kenya for the Ebola quarantine and treatment of Americans, the Kenyan high court blocked the order – but the Kenyan and US governments moved forward anyway, with the first American responders reportedly landing at the Laikipia airbase on Saturday.

Several former US health leaders, including previous top-level CDC officials, laid out their objections in a letter to Congress. “This policy raises profound clinical, ethical, operational and legal concerns,” they wrote.

Daniel Jernigan, who spent 31 years at the CDC, including overseeing the agency’s Ebola response in 2014-15, before resigning last year, said it was not clear how current officials had arrived at this plan “because it’s against so many ethical underpinnings that we have relied on for all of the past responses”.

The US is in the process of building a 50-bed unit at the airbase. Patients would have access to medications and some respiratory support, but those needing higher levels of care would be flown to as-yet unidentified hospitals in Europe.

Yolanda Jacobs, the president of the AFGE Local 2883 government employees’ union, said in a statement that the Trump administration was “abandoning” CDC workers responding to the outbreak, in “a sharp departure from the standard upheld by every previous administration”.

The White House did not respond to inquires about whether the facility would be accessible to Kenyans and others working on the Ebola response, and whether all Americans working on the Ebola response would be required to quarantine or whether it would be required only of Americans with high-risk exposures. Previously, the White House did not say whether Americans wishing to return home rather than going to Kenya would be allowed to do so.