National Chairman
Dr. Abi Mwachi
Secretary General
Dr. Davji Bhimji Atellah National Treasurer
Dr. Mercy Nabwire
K.M.P.D.U
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
KMPDU STATEMENT ON THE PROPOSED U.S. EBOLA QUARANTINE FACILITY IN KENYA [28TH MAY 2026 NAIROBI]
The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) is calling out the hypocrisy of the ongoing backdoor negotiations between the Government of Kenya and the United States administration regarding the establishment of an Ebola quarantine and treatment facility at Laikipia Air Base.
As the vanguard of Kenya's healthcare system, we are utterly disgusted by the government's apparent willingness to trade national biosecurity and the lives of its citizens for foreign aid. We will not sit back and watch Kenya be treated as a containment colony for a lethal pathogen that we did not generate.
Our position is unyielding, and we demand immediate accountability on the following three fronts:
1. Demand for Transparency: Why Has Kenya Been Targeted?
The current Bundibugyo strain Ebola outbreak is centered in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda. We demand absolute transparency from Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on why Kenya has been selected as the designated dumping ground for exposed U.S. citizens while nations directly bordering the epicentre are bypassed.
If the United States believes the 12-hour medevac flight back to Washington is too dangerous for its citizens, by what logic is it safe to fly infected or exposed individuals into Kenyan airspace and drop them in Laikipia? The U.S. government openly states: "We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States." If it is too dangerous for America, it is too dangerous for Kenya. We demand the immediate publication of the bilateral text and an explanation as to why Kenya is being structurally singled out to bear the biosecurity risks of a foreign superpower.
2. The Government is "Importing" Disease While Neglecting Local Healthcare
It is the height of irony and betrayal that, while the Ministry of Health claims our local public facilities are too broke to function, it is actively facilitating the importation of a deadly hemorrhagic fever. What exactly is the government's priority?
intensive care infrastructure. Yet, the government is stretching our already thin national security and public health surveillance mechanisms to accommodate a foreign-funded biohazard hub. You cannot manage a local health crisis by importing an international one. The government must explain to Kenyans why resources and executive attention are being poured into a foreign quarantine facility while Kenyan citizens die in under-equipped public wards from preventable ailments.
3. Demand for Local Employment and Staffing
For years, KMPDU has sounded the alarm on the severe, chronic shortage of doctors and healthcare workers in Kenya. Thousands of qualified, highly trained Kenyan Doctors and healthcare workers remain unemployed or underemployed on precarious, low-paying casual contracts, while our public facilities suffer a deficit of over 100,000 healthcare workers.
We note with extreme suspicion reports that this facility is to be staffed by the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. KMPDU issues a stark warning: We will not tolerate an apartheid healthcare model on Kenyan soil.
If this facility is built, the Kenyan government must leverage this as a non-negotiable mandate to permanently employ the thousands of jobless Kenyan doctors and nurses into the public mainstream, fully funded by the state and the international partners pushing this deal.
We will stand against any arrangement where Kenyan doctors are sidelined as second-class observers or used as low-cost, high-risk auxiliary labor without proper permanent employment terms, elite- level hazardous duty pay, and medical cover.
The KMPDU Position:
Kenya is a sovereign republic, not a geopolitical isolation ward. We give the government a 48-hour ultimatum to make these negotiations public. Should the Ministry of Health proceed to sign away Kenya's health security to appease foreign masters without addressing our structural healthcare shortages and staffing crises, KMPDU will mobilize nationwide industrial action. We will protect our healthcare workers, and we will protect our country.
Deputy Chairman
Dr. Kahura Mundia
Dr. Davji Bhimji Atellah Secretary-General & Chief Executive Officer
Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists, and Dentists' Union
Championing for Doctors' Rights
Deputy Secretary General
Dr. Miskellah Dennis
Deputy Treasurer
Dr. Renoh Omoro