When Ebola Struck, America Turned to Kenya. Reasons Go Back 80 Years.

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On 22 May, as first reported by The New York Times, the United States government announced that it would send U.S. citizens exposed to the Ebola virus to Kenya rather than fly them to the United States, as had previously been the practice. The decision sparked anger and backlash across Kenya, with many questioning why the United States had chosen Kenya over other countries.

We reviewed archival records dating back to the 1930s. We found that for nearly 80 years, U.S. investments in military research, disease surveillance and public health infrastructure in Kenya have helped transform the country into one of Washington's most trusted health-security partners in Africa.

1940s: Cold War

In 1946, shortly after the Second World War, the United States established a military medical research laboratory in Cairo, Egypt, known as the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 3 (NAMRU-3). These centres were created to protect U.S. troops from tropical diseases, but they also formed part of America’s Cold War strategy.

Part of this strategy involved using aid as a form of diplomacy. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed the Foreign Assistance Act, which established the Agency for International Development, later known as USAID. USAID established a formal mission in Kenya in 1965.

1960s: Overseas expansion

However, Egypt’s location in North Africa limited direct access to sub-Saharan Africa, including a region of great interest to U.S. researchers: East Africa. The region is one of the world’s most important areas for infectious disease research because it combines three factors that facilitate the emergence and spread of infectious diseases: high pathogen diversity, large human and animal populations, and climatic conditions favourable to tropical diseases.

So, in 1968, the United States established NAMRU-3’s East African Detachment in Kenya. It operated in collaboration with the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI). The facility later became the U.S. Army Medical Research Unit–Kenya (USAMRU-K), one of the U.S. Department of Defense’s overseas biomedical research laboratories. USAMRU-K operates under the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, the United States military’s premier biomedical research institution. Today, USAMRU-K is one of Africa’s most sophisticated research platforms, with advanced laboratory equipment for detecting emerging pathogens.

As Kenya developed its own research capacity, with the growth of the University of Nairobi, another American agency, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), established operations there in 1979. Kenya became home to one of the CDC’s oldest country programmes in Africa.

2000s: Piloting ground

The establishment of CDC, USAID and Walter Reed sites came with a series of “firsts” and major support for Kenya as the world battled successive waves of HIV in the 1980s. In 2004, Kenya was the first country to pilot and establish the Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Programme (FELTP), a cadre of elite disease detectives trained through a model linked to the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service programme. These scientists remain on standby to investigate and respond to disease outbreaks across the continent. FELTP graduates have responded to some of Kenya’s deadliest disease outbreaks, including the 2006 Rift Valley fever outbreak in Garissa.

Kenya also hosts the CDC’s Global Migration Health Africa Programme, which is responsible for medical requirements tied to U.S. immigration and for preventing the importation of infectious diseases of public health significance into the United States.

All these partnerships came with laboratory capacity, and other organisations followed suit. When the World Bank began building and equipping laboratories in the region, Kenya became one of the major beneficiaries.

Kenya was also the first country to sign the five-year, $2.5 billion framework under the America First Global Health Strategy in December 2025.