Oly Ilunga oversaw Democratic Republic of Congo\u2019s handling of the outbreak, the second deadliest in history, for nearly a year. He was stripped by the presidency of that responsibility in July and resigned from the government days later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier in September, his lawyers said he had been questioned by police about his role managing the Ebola response. They denied any wrongdoing by Ilunga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a statement, the national police said Ilunga was detained because they believed he planned to evade legal proceedings by leaving the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUnfortunately, police received information about his disappearance with a view to reaching Congo-Brazzaville,\u201d the police\u2019s press service said, referring to neighbouring Congo Republic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It said Ilunga was in police custody and would be brought before a prosecutor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ilunga\u2019s lawyers denied he had planned to flee the country. \u201cHe strongly reaffirms his innocence in this case and vows to defend himself,\u201d they said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Foreign donors have provided more than $150 million in funding to the Ebola response over the past year, but the United Nations has said hundreds of millions of dollars more are needed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The outbreak has so far killed over 2,000 people and infected 1,000 more. Only the 2013-16 epidemic in West Africa, which killed more than 11,300, was deadlier. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINSHASA, Sept 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A former Congolese health minister was taken into custody on Saturday over alleged mismanagement of funds for the country\u2019s response to the Ebola epidemic, police said. Oly Ilunga oversaw Democratic Republic of Congo\u2019s handling of the outbreak, the second deadliest in history, for nearly a year. He was stripped by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42707"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}