The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union, KMPDU, has threatened nationwide industrial action if the government proceeds with reported plans to allow the United States to establish an Ebola quarantine and treatment facility without full public disclosure.

In a strongly worded statement issued on Thursday, May 28, KMPDU accused the government of engaging in “backdoor negotiations” with the US administration, warning that Kenya must not be turned into what it described as a “containment colony” for a lethal disease outbreak originating outside the country.

The proposed facility is reportedly intended to quarantine and treat American citizens exposed to Ebola amid the ongoing Bundibugyo strain outbreak centred in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.

International reports indicate the facility would be located at an air force base in Laikipia and staffed by the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

KMPDU Secretary-General Dr Davji Bhimji Atellah said the arrangement raises serious questions about Kenya’s sovereignty, public health preparedness and national biosecurity.

“We will not sit back and watch Kenya be treated as a containment colony for a lethal pathogen that we did not generate,” KMPDU said.

The union has now issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to make public the details of the negotiations, including the bilateral text, the legal basis of the arrangement and the safeguards put in place to protect Kenyans.

KMPDU questioned why Kenya had allegedly been selected to host exposed American citizens while countries closer to the outbreak epicentre were being 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 union posed.

The doctors’ union also accused the government of misplaced priorities, saying it was unacceptable for the state to consider accommodating a foreign-funded biohazard facility while Kenya’s public hospitals continue to suffer shortages of medicines, diagnostic supplies, intensive care capacity and health workers.

“You cannot manage a local health crisis by importing an international one,” KMPDU said.

The union further demanded that if the facility is approved, Kenyan doctors, nurses and healthcare workers must not be sidelined.

It warned against what it called an “apartheid healthcare model” in which foreign personnel run the facility while Kenyan professionals are reduced to casual or auxiliary roles.

KMPDU insisted that any arrangement must include permanent employment for unemployed Kenyan doctors and nurses, proper hazardous duty pay, medical cover and clear protections for all health workers involved.

The Ministry of Health has in recent days said Kenya has heightened Ebola surveillance and border response measures following the regional outbreak. However, the government has not publicly released details of any agreement allowing the establishment of a US-linked quarantine facility in the country.

The latest standoff now places the proposed facility at the centre of a wider national debate over transparency, public health security and whether Kenya should shoulder risks that the United States is unwilling to carry on its own soil.

KMPDU warned that should the government proceed without addressing its concerns, doctors will mobilize nationwide action.

“Kenya is a sovereign republic, not a geopolitical isolation ward,” the union said.

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