Unknown illness kills 50 in Congo

Admin

February 26, 2025
2 min read

An unknown illness, first identified in three children who had eaten a bad, has claimed the lives of over 50 people in the north-west of Congo in the past five weeks. Health experts say that the interval between symptoms, including fever, vomiting, and internal bleeding, has been around 48 hours in many cases.

“That’s what’s really worrying,” said Serge Ngalebato, medical director of Bikoro Hospital, a regional monitoring centre. The “hemorrhagic fever” symptoms are usually connected with deadly viruses including Ebola, dengue, Marburg, and yellow fever. But tests of over a dozen samples collected have ruled these out.

The latest outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo started in late January. 419 cases were recorded and 53 deaths due to the unknown illness. The outbreak stared in the village of Boloko when three children who had eaten a bat died within 48 hours, according to the Africa office of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

There have been concerns about diseases jumping species to infect humans, especially in areas where wild animals are common sources of food. The number of such outbreaks in Africa has risen by over 60% over the last decade, the WHO said in 2022.

After the second outbreak of the mysterious unknown illness in another village early in February, samples from 13 cases were sent to the National Institute for Biomedical Research in the country’s capital, Kinshasa to be tested. All samples tested negative for many common diseases, though some did test positive for malaria.

In 2024, another mysterious flu-like disease killed a dozen people in another part of Congo. It was determined to be malaria after samples were tested.

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