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GOMA, Democratic Republic of the Congo–The Congolese Minister of Health resigned on July 22, after being stripped of any responsibility for managing the Ebola outbreak after the controversy over the introduction of a second vaccine to contain the epidemic.
Oly Ilunga oversaw the Democratic Republic of the Congo's response for almost a year to the second most deadly Ebola outbreak in its history. It has killed over 1,700 people and has been declared an international health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO).
On July 20, President Felix Tshisekedi appointed a team headed by Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director of the Institute of Biomedical Research of Congo, to coordinate the government's response to Ilunga's place.
In his letter of resignation, the minister criticized the pressure exerted by anonymous "actors" to deploy the second vaccine, manufactured by Johnson & Johnson and supported by the WHO.
It has not been used in the field yet due to Ilunga's objections. It is designed to complement a Merck treatment that has been administered to 170,000 people and has proven effective.
Ilunga said the J & J vaccine had not proven effective and that deploying a second vaccine would baffle the people of eastern Congo, where health workers are striving to overcome the information erroneous information on haemorrhagic fever and sporadic hostilities.
Ilunga said it would be "fanciful to think that the new vaccine proposed by actors who manifested an obvious lack of ethics by voluntarily concealing important information from medical authorities could have a significant impact on the control of the current epidemic ".
J & J said the vaccine had been tested on more than 6,000 volunteers and did not raise any particular safety concerns.
Its chief scientist, Paul Stoffels, said during a phone interview that the company had been "very transparent, very open and in full communication" with the Congolese authorities.
He added that J & J had discussed with Muyembe ways to vaccinate people around Goma, the largest city in eastern Congo, where a first case of Ebola was confirmed last week, to create a "curtain of protection".
"Whether they use it or not, it's good for us," Stoffels said, referring to Congolese officials. "They must judge based on their personal knowledge of how and where to use it."
The WHO and other international donors, including the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, have publicly supported the use of the second vaccine, of which 1.5 million doses are available.
A spokesman for the WHO said the organization was grateful for Ilunga's leadership and dedication and looked forward to "working closely with the new coordination team as we have done with the previous one" .
Last week, the organization called the epidemic an international emergency, a rare designation aimed at mobilizing global support as it threatens to gain a foothold in neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.
Only the 2013-2016 epidemic in West Africa, which killed more than 11,000 people, was more deadly.
By Son Mahamba
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