By Muliro Telewa in Nairobi
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| Cases are still being reported in Uganda. |
The authorities
in Kenya have deported more than 100 Ugandans who were attending
a seminar at a hotel in central Nairobi - on the grounds that
they might be carrying the deadly Ebola virus.
More than
120 people have died in Uganda out of the 340 confirmed cases
of Ebola,
most of them in Gulu district.
The government
stopped a peace meeting of Langi and Acholi tribesmen and ordered
them out of the country after it was established
that more than 60 of the 130 participants came from Uganda's Gulu
district.
Kenya's minister
for public health, Dr Amukoa Anangwe, ordered the meeting stopped
on medical grounds.
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| Large numbers of people have been quarantined. |
He accused
the organisers of the Kachoke Madit Conference of giving false
information to public health officers to get the Gulu residents
into the country. Large numbers of people have been quarantined.
During a news conference held at the hotel where the Ugandans
were meeting, Dr Anangwe ordered the participants to leave.
Some were
taken to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and others boarded
two buses chartered by the Kenya government to take them back
to Uganda.
The police
provided escorts to the airport and to accompany the buses to
the Ugandan border to ensure they all left Kenya.
Trouble
started on Thursday when the Kenyan health authorities realised
that the Ugandans had rescheduled their meeting from the Tanzanian
capital Arusha to Nairobi.
Mr
Anangwe said the group changed the venue after the Tanzanian authorities
cancelled their meeting on health grounds.
No infection
He said the
Kenyan doctors had examined the seminar participants and none
of them had the disease, but precautions had to be taken.
Hotel employees
who served the Ugandans are being kept under surveillance to ensure
that they do not have the disease or pose a risk to the customers
they serve.
Since the
outbreak of Ebola in Gulu in September, Kenyan and Ugandan health
officials have been co-operating in monitoring the disease.
Fourteen Kenyans
are being held in seclusion in Busia District in Kenya after Ugandan
police officers identified them as among Kenyans who went to Gulu
to attend funerals of Ebola.
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