Africa CDC urges Saudi Arabia to review Ebola travel restrictions imposed on Kenya

The Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has urged Saudi Arabia to reconsider its travel restrictions imposed on Kenya due to an Ebola case. In a statement posted on X on November 8, 2026, Africa CDC warned that penalising countries for reporting disease outbreaks could discourage transparency and put global public health at risk.

The agency noted that Kenya had acted swiftly and transparently after detecting its first imported Ebola case but was met with travel restrictions instead of international support. Africa CDC Director of the Centre of Public Health Emergency and Lead of the Continental Incident Management Support Team (IMST) for the Ebola response, Dr Wessam Mankoula, urged countries to support one another during public health emergencies, stating, "Isolate the virus, not countries."

Saudi Arabia introduced the restrictions on October 30, 2026, following an epidemiological assessment conducted by the country's national health authorities. The measures included suspending travel by Saudi citizens to Kenya, halting the issuance of all categories of visas to people arriving from Kenya, and barring travellers who had stayed in Kenya or another country experiencing an active Ebola outbreak within 21 days before arriving in the Kingdom.

Brief written by urgent.news from People Daily Kenya's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.