Mysterious disease Ebola-like symptoms occur in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The disease was first detected on January 21, infecting hundreds of people over the past five weeks, and over 50 have died in the northwest of the country, according to the World Health Organization. Health officials have not yet determined the cause of the illness.
Initial investigations suggest that the outbreak began in the village of Boroko, where three children died within days of eating the bat corpses. Infected symptoms include fever, headache, diarrhea, nosebleeds, vomiting, and common bleeding. This coincides with symptoms caused by viruses such as Ebola and Marburg. However, experts have ruled out these pathogens after testing more than 12 samples from suspected cases.
In early February, health officials recorded a second cluster of cases and deaths in a village in Bomate hundreds of kilomet, but there are currently no known links between the clusters. As of February 15, when WHO last reported an outbreak, a total of 431 cases had been reported, including 53 deaths. In most cases, the interval between symptoms onset and death was only 48 hours.
A sample of 18 cases has been sent to the biomedical laboratory in Kinshasa, the capital of DRC, and has been tested negative for the most common pathogens associated with hemorrhagic fever symptoms, but some tested positive for malaria. “The exact cause remains unknown, Ebola and Marburg have already been ruled out, raising concerns about severe infectious or toxic agents,” the WHO wrote in a recent bulletin on the recent outbreak, highlighting the urgent need to accelerate laboratory investigations, improve patient control and isolation, and increase surveillance and risk communication. “Remote locations and weak health infrastructure require immediate, high levels of intervention to increase the risk of further spreading and contain the outbreak.”
The outbreak of diseases caused by pathogens in animals migrating to humans (a process known as zoonotic spillover) is becoming more common in Africa. Land use and climate change are two major drivers as they can increase contact between humans and the wildlife that stores pathogens. Estimates from the WHO show that between 2012 and 2022 there was a 63% increase in animal-to-human outbreaks in Africa. In recent years, multiple outbreaks of MPOX have been observed in the continent, as well as clusters of cases in Ebola and Malburg.
Late last year, another mystical disease killed more than 70 people in the southwestern part of the DRC, many of whom killed children. The symptoms of that outbreak were like influenza, with most patient samples tested returning to positive for malaria. This outbreak was attributed to a respiratory infection that was later exacerbated by malaria.
This story originally appeared Wired Italy Translated from Italian.
