Seven American aid workers who had been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to combat the Ebola outbreak are now in quarantine at a new isolation facility in Kenya, following the introduction of US travel restrictions, the head of a US charity employing them told Reuters.

Travel Restrictions and Isolation Unit

The aid workers are the first known individuals to quarantine at the facility, which has sparked significant opposition in Kenya and is at the center of a legal case. A court ordered a suspension of work, but construction continued, according to US officials and satellite imagery reviewed by Reuters.

Washington’s new policy requires American citizens returning from the DRC, where there is an ongoing Ebola outbreak, to spend three weeks in a third country before entering the United States. The US government is building the 50-bed bio-isolation unit on an air force base in central Kenya for asymptomatic Americans who have been exposed to the virus in the DRC or Uganda.

Kenyan Opposition and Legal Action

Many Kenyans view the construction of the facility as the US offloading the health risk associated with the patients. Last month. Kenya’s health minister announced an immediate halt to the facility’s construction after being found in contempt of court for failing to observe the order to stop work pending a final ruling.

“Samaritan’s Purse has seven American Disaster Assistance Response Team staff members there,” Franklin Graham, president and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse, told Reuters in response to questions. “None of them have any symptoms. But they are being quarantined by the Kenyan government for 21 days,” Graham said.

A US state department official told Reuters that a group of asymptomatic Americans who had served on the frontlines of the Ebola response had “voluntarily moved to the Kenya facility for precautionary monitoring and isolation.”

“Kenyan authorities have authorized their movement into the facility under the observation of the US public health service clinicians,” the official said, adding that the decision was made “strictly out of an abundance of caution.”

Facility Conditions and Exposure Levels

Kenyan health ministry officials did not immediately respond to calls or requests for comment on the move; a senior Kenyan foreign ministry official said they had no information on it. Another source familiar with the matter who asked for anonymity said that the group had arrived at the site in central Kenya on Monday and were sleeping in army cots in tents.

He said some had treated Ebola patients at the Christian aid group’s treatment centers in Congo, while others had carried out work such as construction, with no direct contact with the sick. “There is one potential high-risk exposure,” he said, adding that their health is being monitored — Kenyan authorities are not allowing the group to leave the facility to travel anywhere else in the country, he added.

The often-fatal viral disease spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids from infected people or animals. Samaritan’s Purse. Which has been promised several million dollars from the Trump administration for the Ebola response, is an evangelical Christian group that works in disaster zones around the world.

It is one of the biggest foreign aid groups treating Ebola in Congo and has the largest number of Americans there, working closely alongside the World Health Organization to contain the outbreak. One of its US staff members who caught Ebola earlier this month was transferred to a hospital in Germany on Monday.