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Coronavirus: Kenya suspends flights from China, orders isolation of 239 new arrivals in secure military facility
- Citizens of east African nation ‘will continue to be exposed to the deadly coronavirus unless the government is stopped from allowing more flights’, high court judge says
- Ruling comes after complaints aired on social media about passengers from Guangzhou entering country unchecked are raised in parliament
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Kenya’s high court on Friday ordered the temporary suspension of all incoming flights from China and instructed the government to track down and isolate the 239 people who arrived in the country this week aboard a China Southern Airlines flight.
Justice James Makau told the country’s foreign affairs, interior and health ministers to track, re-examine, confine and quarantine the passengers, who arrived on Wednesday from the south China city of Guangzhou.
He said the visitors should be held in a Kenya Defence Force or otherwise secure medical facility until it was established they were not infected with the new coronavirus.
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“Kenyans will continue to be exposed to the deadly coronavirus unless the government is stopped from allowing more flights from China,” he said.
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China Southern Airlines accepted the court’s order and said it had suspended all scheduled flights to Nairobi until further notice.
“On February 28, due to the decreasing passenger flow, China Southern Airlines has made the necessary arrangements to suspend flights connecting Guangzhou, Changsha and Nairobi until further notice,” the company said through the Chinese embassy in Nairobi.
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