Makeshift hospital for Americans exposed to Ebola will open in Kenya on Friday

The field hospital the U.S. military is building at Laikipia Air Base in central Kenya to house Americans potentially exposed to Ebola will begin operating Friday with a 50-bed capacity focused on quarantine in the early phase, administration officials said. The facility will be staffed by officers from the U.S. Public Health Service and will have aircraft on standby to move exposed Americans at a moment’s notice, although no individuals have been identified for transfer yet. Officials said the setup could expand to 250 beds in a later phase, and a second phase next week would add isolation and biocontainment units transported from the United States. More than 30 Public Health Service officers trained for three days at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland before departing for Kenya, with a second group slated to deploy next weekend. The site sits at Laikipia, about 120 miles north of Nairobi, near the British Army Training Unit Kenya. The administration argues the Kenya facility will isolate and monitor exposed citizens rather than repatriating infected individuals, a policy that has drawn concern from public health advocates. The operation comes as the Congo Ebola outbreak and related cases continue to rise, underscoring the stakes of rapid response and containment.