Congo arrests former health minister for misuse of Ebola funds | Science

By Jon CohenSeptember 16, 2019, 4:35 pm

Police in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) arrested former Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga for allegedly missing $ 4.3 million of Ebola response funds. The arrest of 14 September took place on the same day as an unprecedented delegation of senior US public health officials met with the DRC President and other leaders in Kinshasa to discuss the Ebola outbreak, 13 months old, the second largest.

There is no clear link between the two events, but concerns have increased in recent weeks as insufficient funds could hinder the country's efforts to end the epidemic, which claimed the lives of two-thirds of the world's population. 100 people with the disease.

Ilunga resigned in July after DRC President Felix Tshisekedi transferred control of the response. Ilunga was arrested in Kinshasa because he was considering fleeing from the other side of the river to the Republic of Congo to avoid accusations of mismanagement of funds, according to a statement from the police. Ilunga's lawyers strongly denied the allegations they described as "scandalous" and "defamatory" in their own statement. The country's inspector general oversaw the financing of the Ebola program, they noted, noting that $ 1.9 million of the total had been paid to the ministry after Ilunga's resignation. "He firmly reaffirms his innocence in this case and promises to defend himself with the utmost energy for his honor," they wrote, pointing out that the money placed under his care had been used exclusively for the response to Ebola.

Tshisekedi met with US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, who traveled to Kinshasa with a team consisting of Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and Anthony Fauci, director and director of the National Institute of Allergic and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The US government is the largest donor to the Ebola response, providing $ 158 million in assistance and $ 238 million in technical assistance. The delegation came to "assess the situation on the ground," said the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC, in a statement. NIAID helped finance the purchase and distribution of an experimental Ebola vaccine, which has now been administered to 220,000 people in the DRC. Officials say the vaccine has helped slow the spread of the deadly virus. NIAID has separately helped develop Ebola treatments that, according to preliminary data, are saving lives.

This Ebola outbreak has been going on for so long, in part because armed militias have repeatedly burned treatment centers and even killed health workers, forcing many interruptions of the intervention.

The US delegation then traveled to North-Kivu province, a conflict-ridden north-east region, which began fighting an Ebola outbreak in August 2018. It also met with Rwandan officials and Ugandan neighbors of North Kivu. "Until the end of the epidemic, this will remain a top priority for the health of the United States," Azar said at a press conference on the phone today. Unlike previous reports, Azar said the CDC was not sending its intervention teams to areas at risk of Ebola virus infection from North Kivu for security reasons. No policy prevents US government employees from going to the front lines to help. Some are present. "The ambassador and the regional security officer continue to assess security territory by territory," he said.

Funding concerns

Two weeks ago, António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, based in New York, went to the DRC to meet Tshisekedi and visit the Ebola treatment centers. Guterres warned during his visit that there was an "extremely serious" problem, with donors providing only 15 per cent of the $ 278 million that they had pledged to finance for the response until the end of the year. At the end of this year. "When there is no money, even if there are promises, the response to Ebola stops," Guterres said. "And if we lose a week in our response to Ebola, we do not lose a week: we can lose the war on Ebola."

The World Health Organization (WHO), the main US agency responsible for coordinating the international response to the Ebola outbreak in the DRC, needs about $ 162 million. To date, he has received $ 58.8 million, according to his press office. In the last 10 days, Science has repeatedly sought out information on donors who have not fulfilled their promises, but neither the press offices of WHO nor those of the United States have provided this information. The WHO has also not responded to repeated requests to speak to an expert about the impact of funding deficits.

Rebecca Katz, a global health safety expert at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, has created a database called Atlas of Infectious Diseases to track funding. His team struggled to decipher the details of the response to the current outbreak of Ebola in the DRC. "I do not think anyone does a careful accounting," says Katz. "It's messy." She explains not only who promised what, but many donors do not specify exactly who receives funding, whether from WHO or a non-governmental organization. "There is not a lot of stuff but a lot of fuss," she says.

On 17 July, the WHO declared a rare and worrying public health emergency about the Ebola outbreak in the DRC, but it is not clear whether this alarming ring has led donors to contribute more. . "We used to think that if you make the statement, the funding will start to flow," she says. "It's not clear."

At today's press conference, Azar said the US government and other major donors attach great importance to the integrity and accountability of disbursements of large sums spent on this issue. intervention effort, adding that "we will continue to work on the integrity of the flow of these funds".

Azar concluded by pointing out that the US government has been committed in the long term to helping the DRC stabilize this unstable country and fight this Ebola outbreak. "We were there before the first case of Ebola," he said, "and we will be there for the people of the DRC after the last Ebola case."