Less than two months after his resignation, former Congolese health minister Oly Ilunga, suspected of embezzling funds for the fight against Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was "placed in police custody" in Kinshasa. announced Saturday, September 14 the police to AFP.

Dr. Ilunga was arrested and "the order was given to escort him under escort to the police where he was placed in custody and he will be referred Monday, September 16, 2019 to the Prosecutor General at the Court of Cassation" Police spokesman Colonel Pierrot-Rombaut Mwanamputu said in a message to AFP.

Targeted by a judicial investigation, he was arrested and heard in late August by the court, before being banned from leaving the territory of the DR Congo.

His arrest was related to "misdemeanors of [the] mismanagement of funds allocated to the Ebola response," said Colonel Mwanamputu.

Disavowed by President Felix Tshisekedi

Appointed in December 2016, Dr. Ilunga resigned on July 22 from the Ministry of Health. He felt disavowed by the head of state Felix Tshisekedi, who had removed the conduct of the response against Ebola, which he entrusted the coordination to Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director of the Congolese Institute of Biomedical Research. Kinshasa (INRB).

The former minister also opposed the introduction of a second vaccine "by actors who have demonstrated a manifest lack of ethics." Mr Ilunga had opposed in a circular the introduction of this second vaccine of the Belgian laboratory Janssen, a subsidiary of the American Johnson & Johnson.

At the beginning of September, his lawyer told AFP that Oly Ilunga had been heard, among other things, about the payment of funds to customary chiefs in the fight against Ebola. These funds were paid after the assassination in April of a doctor from the World Health Organization (WHO).

This Cameroonian epidemiologist was killed by strangers in Butembo, one of the epicentres of the epidemic, where the Ebola Treatment Center (ETC) was also attacked.

Epidemic reported in August 2018

After these tragedies, the ministry insisted on the "commitment" of communities in the response to Ebola, to overcome their "resistance" and violence against doctors and volunteers.

DR Congo is facing an outbreak of Ebola declared on August 1, 2018, the tenth largest on Congolese soil since 1976.

The latest report released Friday reported 2,071 deaths for 3,084 registered cases, according to health authorities.

With AFP