Africa: Ebola is Back. So Are The Double Standards

Is history repeating itself — just four years after the COVID-19 pandemic — with the United States demanding an Ebola quarantine camp for Americans in Kenya? In May, the Kenya High Court ordered the US centre to temporarily close down , warning it will expose the public — in a country without a single confirmed Ebola case from the current outbreak — to unacceptable risks .

Is history repeating itself — just four years after the COVID-19 pandemic — with the United States (US) demanding an Ebola quarantine camp for Americans in Kenya, and Western countries, once again, rolling out travel bans for African countries?

Ebola, while lethal, is not an immediate risk to South Africans, although there are nearly daily flights between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the centre of the outbreak, and Johannesburg. Unlike COVID, it spreads only through contact with bodily fluids , not through the air.

In May, the Kenya High Court ordered the centre at Laikipia Air Base near the town of Nanyuki, about 190km north of Nairobi, to temporarily close down , warning it will expose the public — in a country without a single confirmed Ebola case from the current outbreak in the DRC — to unacceptable risks .

Caused by a rare Ebola virus strain called Bundibugyo, the DRC's rise in cases started on 15 May , with 617 confirmed cases and 117 deaths by 9 June . There's no vaccine for this type of Ebola and also no reliable treatments .

The outbreak has already crossed into Uganda, and experts now fear it could eclipse the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record , which killed more than 11 000 people across West Africa between 2014 and 2016.

The US says the facility would allow Americans working in or travelling through outbreak areas in the DRC and Uganda to be moved quickly to a controlled setting, avoiding evacuation flights to America.

Kenyan President William Ruto said last week that refusing the US "would look very unhuman", given its long-time support of Kenyan healthcare.

To Tian Johnson, a Johannesburg-based health justice activist and founder of the African Alliance , the deal exposes something uglier than a simple quid pro quo.

"The issue is bigger than quarantine itself," he told Bhekisisa . "It is about why the same urgency is not directed towards strengthening African laboratories, surveillance systems, and the healthcare workforce.

Johnson, and many others, say COVID mistakes are being repeated in the raging Ebola outbreak.

An open letter , calling for "an end to the cycle of panic and neglect" was released this week. It was signed by world health lead