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By Rachel Dobkin
Weekend Reporter
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Public health officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo provided an update on Thursday about a mystery disease that's killed dozens of people.
What Happened?
There have been 71 confirmed deaths from the flu-like disease, including 27 people who died in hospitals and 44 in the community in the southern Kwango province, according to Congo's health minister Roger Kamba. The deaths were recorded between November 10 and November 25.
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Of those hospitalized, 10 died due to lack of blood transfusion and 17 as a result of respiratory problems, Kamba said on Thursday.
The minister said that there were around 380 cases of the disease and nearly half were children under the age of five.
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported slightly different numbers—376 cases and 79 deaths—which the head of the agency, Jean Kaseya, attributed to problems with surveillance and case definition.
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What Is the Update?
Kamba said Thursday that "the Congolese government is on general alert regarding this disease," adding that epidemiological experts are to take samples in the Panzi health zone of Kwango province and investigate the disease.
Meanwhile, Kaseya said Thursday that more information about the disease should be known in the next 48 hours as experts receive results from laboratory samples of infected people.
"There are so many things we don't know" about the disease, including whether it is infectious and how it is transmitted, Kaseya said.
The African CDC head did say the agency believes it might be a respiratory disease.
"First diagnostics are leading us to think it is a respiratory disease," Kaseya said. "But we need to wait for the laboratory results."
What Are the Symptoms of the Disease?
Authorities say that symptoms of the disease include fever, headache, cough and anemia.
"We do not know the cause but I only noticed high fevers, vomiting... and then death," Claude Niongo, a Panzi resident who said his wife and seven-year-old daughter died from the disease, told The Associated Press (AP). "Now, the authorities are talking to us about an epidemic but in the meantime, there is a problem of care [and] people are dying," he added.
Lucien Lufutu, president of the civil society consultation framework of Kwango province, said the local hospital where patients are treated is underequipped.
"There is a lack of medicines and medical supplies, since the disease is not yet known, most of the population is treated by traditional practitioners," Lufutu, who is in Panzi, told the AP.
This latest health emergency comes amid an ongoing mpox epidemic that has devastated the Central African nation, with over 47,000 suspected cases and more than 1,000 suspected deaths reported by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The WHO declared mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, a global health emergency in August following outbreaks of the virus in Africa.
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.
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