Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo -
Congo's health minister resigned on Monday after being stripped
of responsibility for managing the country's Ebola outbreak,
potentially paving the way for the introduction of a second
vaccine to contain the spreading epidemic.
Oly Ilunga has overseen Democratic Republic of Congo's near
year-long response to what is the second deadliest Ebola
outbreak in history. It has killed more than 1,700 and been
declared an international health emergency by the World Health
Organization (WHO).
President Felix Tshisekedi on Saturday appointed a team led
by Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the head of Congo's biomedical research
institute, to coordinate the government's response in Ilunga's
place.
In his resignation letter, the minister criticised pressure
by unnamed "actors" to deploy the second vaccine, manufactured
by Johnson & Johnson and backed by the WHO.
It has yet to be used on the ground due to Ilunga's
objections. It is designed to complement a Merck
treatment that has been given to 170,000 people and proved
effective.
Ilunga has said the J&J vaccine has not been proved
effective and that deploying a second one would confuse people
in eastern Congo, where health workers are struggling to
overcome widespread misinformation about the haemorrhagic fever
as well as sporadic hostility.
Ilunga said it would be "fanciful to think that the new
vaccine proposed by actors who have shown an obvious lack of
ethics by voluntarily hiding important information from medical
authorities, could have a significant impact on the control of
the current outbreak".
J&J says the vaccine has been tested on more than 6,000
volunteers and raised no particular safety concerns.
Its chief scientific officer, Paul Stoffels, said in a
telephone interview that the company had been "very transparent,
very open and in full communication" with Congolese authorities.
He said J&J had discussed with Muyembe how people could be
vaccinated around eastern Congo's biggest city, Goma, where a
first Ebola case was confirmed last week, to create a protective
"curtain".
"Whether they use it or not, it's fine for us," said
Stoffels, referring to Congolese officials. "They have to judge
based on their personal knowledge of how and where to use it."
The WHO and other international donors including medical
charity Medecins Sans Frontieres have publicly supported using
the second vaccine, of which 1.5 million doses are available.
A WHO spokesman said the organisation was grateful for
Ilunga's leadership and dedication and looked forward to
"working closely with the new coordination team as we have with
the previous one".
Last week, the organisation labelled the outbreak an
international emergency, a rare designation aimed at galvanising
global support as it threatens to gain a foothold in
neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda.
Only the 2013-16 epidemic in West Africa that killed more
than 11,000 people has been deadlier.