(Bloomberg) -- The Democratic Republic of Congo plans to start using a second Ebola vaccine, a move that was rejected by a former health minister who is now in custody, as it looks for ways to contain the second-deadliest ever outbreak of the hemorrhagic virus.

A vaccine produced by Johnson & Johnson will be introduced alongside one manufactured by Merck & Co., which has already been given to more than 200,000 people since August 2018, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the head of Congo’s Ebola response, said late on Friday night. He didn’t say exactly when the vaccine, already used in Uganda and Guinea, will start to be given to people.

“This vaccine doesn’t present a problem for the population,” Muyembe said. “We will not mix up the two vaccines,” he said, adding that he hopes to “create a corridor of immunized people” by offering the J&J shots to Congolese traders who frequently cross the border with Rwanda and to communities in the province next to the outbreak’s epicenter.  

A panel that advises the World Health Organization recommended the introduction of a second inoculation back in May, according to Muyembe. That was resisted by the country’s ex-health minister, Oly Ilunga, who was concerned a second regimen could prove confusing and exacerbate already complicated relations between the affected communities and Ebola response teams.

Ilunga resigned in July when President Felix Tshisekedi sidelined him and put Muyembe, the head of Congo’s biomedical research institute, in charge of government efforts to contain the outbreak. The former minister is now being held in custody under suspicion of embezzling public funds allocated to tackling the virus – accusations Ilunga’s lawyers say are baseless.

The J&J vaccine, which is designed to protect people not immediately at risk, requires two doses 56 days apart, unlike Merck’s single-dose injection. The vaccines will be kept far apart and given to different communities to prevent worry and panic. The original drug is part of a ring-vaccination campaign given to front line health workers, contacts of the infected and people they have mixed with.

Ebola has so far killed 2,111 people and infected another 3,157 in Congo since the outbreak was declared 14 months ago, according to government data released Friday. That makes it the worst outbreak since the 2013-2016 epidemic in West Africa that killed more than 11,000 people. The WHO has declared this outbreak an international public health emergency.

To contact the reporter on this story: William Clowes in Kinshasa at wclowes@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew Davis at abdavis@bloomberg.net, James Amott, Charles Daly

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