{"id":175,"date":"2026-05-27T20:10:52","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T20:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=175"},"modified":"2026-05-27T20:10:52","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T20:10:52","slug":"trump-administration-plans-to-send-citizens-with-ebola-exposure-to-kenya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=175","title":{"rendered":"Trump Administration Plans to Send Citizens With Ebola Exposure to Kenya"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In what one emergency physician and public health expert called \u201ca dramatic abdication of what we owe our own,\u201d the Trump administration is reportedly preparing to send Americans with suspected and confirmed cases of Ebola to a facility in Kenya, instead of repatriating them and treating them in the state-of-the-art quarantine and treatment facilities the U.S. has for dangerous diseases that pose a threat to public health.<\/p>\n

The facility is currently being set up, The New York Times<\/em> reported, and several dozen Public Health Service officers \u2014 whose agency operates under the Department of Defense \u2014 are training to deploy to Kenya. The PHS also deployed to Liberia during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is unbelievable and infuriating,\u201d said Dr. Craig Spencer, a professor of public health at Brown University.<\/p>\n

According to the Times<\/em>, the PHS officers in Kenya were initially going to monitor any Americans, such as healthcare workers who have gone to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to help contain the outbreak that was declared a public health emergency of international concern earlier this month. Those who showed symptoms would be transferred to European hospitals; at least seven Americans have been sent to facilities in Germany and the Czech Republic in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

But two people familiar with the plans told the Times<\/em> that the administration now plans to see to the patients\u2019 treatment in the Kanya facility as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Americans will need us most \u2014 especially those who go abroad to help end this outbreak at its source \u2014 the U.S. government plans to send them to a hospital it is standing up from scratch in Kenya,\u201d wrote Spencer on Substack on Tuesday. \u201cI find it incredibly difficult to believe that we can stand up a facility in the next few weeks \u2014 or even months \u2014 with the staff, the supplies, and the experience we\u2019ve built over the past decade in more than a dozen hospitals across the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, who helped treat Ebola patients in Sierra Leone in 2014, said the plan does not make sense \u201cfrom a preparedness, operational, or ethical standpoint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow are public health officers going to take care of persons who get sick?\u201d said Kuppalli. \u201cThese are not persons who have experience in providing high levels of care for persons with this infection. Also, why would a PHS officer deploy knowing if they had an exposure that they wouldn\u2019t be repatriated?\u201d<\/p>\n

Spencer raised concerns that the plan \u201ccould push people to hide potential exposures, or incentivize individuals or organizations to downplay those exposures. If you know that any \u2018high-risk\u2019 exposure will get you shipped to Kenya instead of sent home, it\u2019s not hard to imagine people not being fully forthcoming about what may have happened to them. That is exactly backwards from how you contain a disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will also discourage Americans from joining as part of the response,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI know of multiple healthcare providers who are considering deploying with humanitarian organizations, and we need a cavalry to help support the on-the-ground response if we have any hope of ending this outbreak. But programs and policies like this are exactly the reasons people will hesitate to sign up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spencer, who contracted Ebola after deploying to West Africa in 2014 and was quarantined and treated at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, emphasized that the strain of Ebola that began spreading in Ituri Province, DRC and is confirmed to have spread to Uganda does not have an approved treatment or vaccine.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurvival depends heavily on the quality of the system and the people around you,\u201d wrote Spencer. \u201cWe have that system \u2014 I survived Ebola and am here today partly because of it \u2014 but we are choosing not to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The news of the plan to send infected Americans to Kenya comes as suspected cases have ballooned to at least 906, according to the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) latest Weekly External Situation Report, released on Sunday. The report said there have been 223 suspected deaths from the current Ebola strain, which is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, as opposed to the Zaire strain, for which a vaccine and treatments have been approved. More than 100 cases and 10 deaths have been confirmed in DRC, while seven cases and one death have been confirmed in Uganda.<\/p>\n

The report emphasized that following up with contacts of people who have developed Ebola symptoms is a \u201cmajor challenge,\u201d with just 19.3% of contacts seen by health professionals within the previous 24 hours as of May 23.<\/p>\n

\u201cConstraints include insecurity, movement restrictions, highly mobile populations linked to mining communities, and
difficulties tracing contacts across dispersed and cross-border populations, as well as limited trained contact tracers to
date,\u201d reads the report.<\/p>\n

Low levels of trust in the affected communities \u2014 a major impediment to an effective response \u2014 also appear to be raising the risk of transmission. As Reuters reported on Monday, at least three attacks on Ebola treatment facilities in the northeastern DRC have caused dozens of patients to flee the hospitals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe attackers are reportedly motivated by a desire for the hospitals to release the bodies of deceased Ebola patients for burial \u2014 unsafe given that the virus remains transmissible after death \u2014 or by suspicion or doubt about the virus,\u201d reported Reuters.<\/p>\n

Dr. Richard Lokudu, medical director of the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital in Ituri, told Reuters that \u201cthere is denial of the disease within the population.\u201d<\/p>\n

While U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio blamed WHO for being \u201ca little late\u201d to identify that outbreak, public health experts have pointed to the Trump administration\u2019s massive cuts to foreign assistance and global public health initiatives, including the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), as a major factor that likely allowed cases to spread for an extended period of time before international officials realized the outbreak was occurring.<\/p>\n

As Common Dreams<\/em> reported last week, USAID\u2019s Ebola prevention work was largely halted by the Department of Government Efficiency, run last year by tech billionaire Elon Musk \u2014 despite Musk\u2019s insistence that funding for Ebola efforts was maintained. USAID had more than 50 staffers dedicated to responding to and preparing for disease outbreaks like Ebola and Marburg virus, but DOGE\u2019s cuts reduced the workforce to about six people.<\/p>\n

With Rubio insisting that \u201cwe can\u2019t have Ebola cases\u201d in the U.S. and that keeping the disease out of U.S. borders is the top priority for the country, the administration has invoked Title 42 to keep travelers from the DRC, Uganda, and neighboring South Sudan from entering the US if they were in any of the three countries in the previous 21 days. WHO has warned that travel bans and restrictions are not based in science.<\/p>\n

Cuts at the CDC have also led the agency to put out a call to its workforce, seeking volunteers to conduct public health screenings at airports.<\/p>\n

The State Department said last week it had mobilized about $23 million to help the DRC and Uganda respond to the outbreak and is \u201cmobilizing CDC staff and resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Spencer said Sunday that the administration\u2019s travel bans and focus on keeping those affected by Ebola out of U.S. borders are \u201ca policy you put in place when you have nothing else meaningful to add. It gives the appearance of doing \u2018something\u2019 while effectively doing nothing of value at all. And it takes away attention from where the real problem is.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is unbelievable and infuriating,\u201d said Dr. Craig Spencer, a professor of public health who survived Ebola in 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump Administration Plans to Send Citizens With Ebola Exposure to Kenya - Smart Moving Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=175\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump Administration Plans to Send Citizens With Ebola Exposure to Kenya - Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cThis is unbelievable and infuriating,\u201d said Dr. Craig Spencer, a professor of public health who survived Ebola in 2014.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=175\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-27T20:10:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=175#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=175\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ec0d70042821fd684a174c8d0e8becfa\"},\"headline\":\"Trump Administration Plans to Send Citizens With Ebola Exposure to Kenya\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-27T20:10:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=175\"},\"wordCount\":1311,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=175#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/e2de5a7ddbaa8f6e255e36542b8c27bb.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Interesting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=175#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=175\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=175\",\"name\":\"Trump Administration Plans to Send Citizens With Ebola Exposure to Kenya - 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