Whilst protests are taking place in Nanyuki against the planned Ebola isolation centre and Parliament is divided over the national health strategy, the situation in Nairobi has proved far simpler – and far less reassuring: a QR code that doesn’t work, hundreds of passengers queuing, and officials forced to let people through to avoid chaos.

For weeks, Kenya has been embroiled in an increasingly heated debate over its health preparedness in the face of the risk of Ebola spreading from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. The government defends its prevention plan, funded by Trump’s keenly interested United States, the opposition raises doubts, and citizens protest against the planned quarantine centre at Laikipia Air Base, near Nanyuki.
Yet, whilst the debate focuses on grand strategies and the facilities to be built, the testimonies of a few passengers who had just returned from China were enough to shift attention back to a much more immediate problem: the functioning of checks at Nairobi International Airport.
According to several travellers quoted by Capital News, on arrival at JKIA hundreds of people were forced to queue at a single health checkpoint to complete the forms required by the authorities online. However, the system, which relies on scanning a QR code and entering health and travel details, reportedly suffered numerous glitches.
Queues grew longer, passengers crowded together and, according to some accounts, the staff on duty were unable to manage the influx. In some cases, travellers report, the pressure became so great that staff were forced to let some people through without completing the full procedure.
An incident which, beyond the inconvenience to travellers, raises far more serious questions. If the country’s first health screening point struggles to cope with a routine international arrival, what would its capacity be in the event of a genuine epidemiological emergency?
The issue takes on even greater significance because it comes at a time when the government continues to defend the plan for a 50-bed isolation centre at Laikipia Air Base. Health Minister Aden Duale, speaking in Parliament, reiterated that the facility will be built and that it forms part of a national network of 23 quarantine centres.
Duale also stated that over 71,000 people have already been screened at the country’s entry points as part of Ebola preparedness measures. These figures should reassure the public, but they inevitably end up being contrasted with the images and accounts emerging from Kenya’s main airport itself.
As is often the case, the problem does not seem to be merely the presence or absence of a facility, but the gap between decisions taken in government offices and their practical implementation on the ground. Between an announced quarantine and a genuinely effective control measure lies the machinery of the state, with its crashing computers, insufficient staff and the inevitable flaws that emerge when theory meets reality.
Fortunately, Ebola has not yet reached Kenya. But the scenes witnessed at JKIA serve as a reminder that the first line of defence against any epidemic is not a building to be constructed tomorrow. It is the control measures that work today.