* Minister has blocked use of back-up J&J vaccine
* Ministry cedes responsibility for controlling outbreak
* President appoints new team led by biomedics chief
* Ebola outbreak is second deadliest in history(Adds comment from Johnson & Johnson)
By Fiston Mahamba
GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo, July 22 (Reuters) -C ongo's health minister resigned on Monday after being strippedof responsibility for managing the country's Ebola outbreak,potentially paving the way for the introduction of a secondvaccine to contain the spreading epidemic.
Oly Ilunga has overseen Democratic Republic of Congo's nearyear-long response to what is the second deadliest Ebolaoutbreak in history. It has killed more than 1,700 and beendeclared an international health emergency by the World HealthOrganization (WHO).
President Felix Tshisekedi on Saturday appointed a team ledby Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the head of Congo's biomedical researchinstitute, to coordinate the government's response in Ilunga'splace.
In his resignation letter, the minister criticised pressureby unnamed "actors" to deploy the second vaccine, manufacturedby Johnson & Johnson and backed by the WHO.
It has yet to be used on the ground due to Ilunga'sobjections. It is designed to complement a Mercktreatment that has been given to 170,000 people and provedeffective.
Ilunga has said the J&J vaccine has not been provedeffective and that deploying a second one would confuse peoplein eastern Congo, where health workers are struggling toovercome widespread misinformation about the haemorrhagic feveras well as sporadic hostility.
Ilunga said it would be "fanciful to think that the newvaccine proposed by actors who have shown an obvious lack ofethics by voluntarily hiding important information from medicalauthorities, could have a significant impact on the control ofthe current outbreak".
J&J says the vaccine has been tested on more than 6,000volunteers and raised no particular safety concerns.
Its chief scientific officer, Paul Stoffels, said in atelephone 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 bevaccinated around eastern Congo's biggest city, Goma, where afirst Ebola case was confirmed last week, to create a protective"curtain".
"Whether they use it or not, it's fine for us," saidStoffels, referring to Congolese officials. "They have to judgebased on their personal knowledge of how and where to use it."
The WHO and other international donors including medicalcharity Medecins Sans Frontieres have publicly supported usingthe second vaccine, of which 1.5 million doses are available.
A WHO spokesman said the organisation was grateful forIlunga's leadership and dedication and looked forward to"working closely with the new coordination team as we have withthe previous one".
Last week, the organisation labelled the outbreak aninternational emergency, a rare designation aimed at galvanisingglobal support as it threatens to gain a foothold inneighbouring Rwanda and Uganda.
Only the 2013-16 epidemic in West Africa that killed morethan 11,000 people has been deadlier.
(Reporting by Fiston Mahamba and Anna Pujol-Mazzini; Additionalreporting by Kate Kelland in London and Tom Miles in Geneva;Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by John Stonestreet and AlisonWilliams)