Seven American aid workers who had been in the Democratic Republic of Congo helping combat an Ebola outbreak are quarantining at an isolation facility in Kenya after new U.S. travel restrictions took effect, the head of the U.S. charity employing them told Reuters.
The aid workers are the first people to be housed at the facility, which has drawn widespread opposition in Kenya and is the subject of an ongoing court case.
A judge ordered operations at the site suspended pending a final ruling, but U.S. officials and satellite imagery reviewed by Reuters indicate construction and other work at the facility have continued.
Washington's new policy requires U.S. citizens returning from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there is an Ebola outbreak, to spend three weeks in a third country before entering the United States.
The bio-isolation unit, built by the U.S. government on an air force base in central Kenya for Americans exposed to the virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Uganda, has angered many Kenyans, who accuse the United States of offloading the health risks of caring for Ebola patients.
