US spends $20m on Ebola

The US has announced an additional Ksh2.59bn ($20m) in funding to support Ebola preparedness efforts in Kenya and three other East African countries, bringing its total direct contribution to the response to more than Ksh28.4 bn ($220m). According to the Kenyans, in a statement, the US State Department said the funds would be directed towards preparedness activities in Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, and South Sudan as countries in the region strengthen measures against the deadly virus. According to the department, the additional funding will support national emergency operations centres, improve disease surveillance and testing capabilities, enhance border screening, and strengthen infection prevention and control measures. The funding takes place against the backdrop of growing opposition to the planned Ebola quarantine facility in Laikipia, where protests on Tuesday left one person dead and more than 50 others arrested. According to CNN, furious protesters are continuing to vent their anger at plans for the US-funded isolation ward for Americans exposed to Ebola abroad. The controversial proposal has sparked fears of Ebola entering a country that has never recorded a single case of the often-fatal disease.

The nearest outbreaks are unfolding more than 1 500 miles away in eastern DRC, where Ebola was first detected, and neighbouring Uganda. Critics argue the facility would expose Kenya to risks the US would not accept on its own soil. Despite a court order halting construction of the ward pending a legal challenge, Kenya’s Government has continued to back the project, fuelling a public backlash. President William Ruto defended the decision, saying it would be ‘very inhuman’ for Kenya to reject a US-funded facility after years of receiving American aid, notes CNN. However, Ruto’s former deputy, Rigathi Gachagua, who was impeached in 2024, said the plan revealed double standards on the part of the US and should be resisted. ‘We find it unpalatable that if Americans are not willing to take care of their own patients in their own country because it’s risky to the rest of the population, the Americans will decide that that can be done in Kenya,’ said Gachagua.

The Ebola outbreak is spreading into new areas of the northeastern DRC and is bigger in scale than hitherto detected, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned. Much more needs to be done to contain the virus, the WHO said, with isolation bed capacity far below the anticipated need, based on how it is spreading, reports africanews. Since the outbreak was declared on 15 May, there have been 676 confirmed Ebola cases, including 136 deaths in the DRC, according to the latest figures from the WHO. There are a further 119 suspected cases, while 32 patients have recovered. No approved vaccines or treatments exist for the rare Bundibugyo species of the virus responsible for the current outbreak, which is centred on Ituri province, with cases also detected in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces. ‘The outbreak continues to expand both in terms of case numbers but also in terms of geographic spread,’ said Olivier le Polain, the WHO's head of epidemiology and analytics for response.