An unknown illness has killed more than 50 people in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo, including a group of children who had allegedly eaten a bat.
The interval between the onset of symptoms and death was just 48 hours in most cases, and “that’s really worrying”, Serge Ngalebato, medical director of Bikoro Hospital, a regional monitoring centre, told AP.
The disease outbreak began on 21 January, and by last Monday, 419 cases had been recorded, including 53 deaths.
According to the WHO’s Africa office, it began in the town of Boloko after three children ate a bat and died within 48 hours, with haemorrhagic fever symptoms.
There have long been concerns about diseases jumping from animals to humans in places where wild animals are popularly eaten, reports CBS. The number of such outbreaks in Africa has surged by more than 60% in the past decade, the WHO said in 2022.
After a second outbreak of the current mystery disease on 9 February, samples from 13 cases were sent to the National Institute for Biomedical Research in Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, for testing.
All samples have been negative for Ebola or other common haemorrhagic fever diseases like Marburg. Some tested positive for malaria.
Last year, another mystery flu-like illness that killed more than 143 people in another part of the Congo was determined to be likely malaria.
The region has suffered a number of disease outbreaks in recent years, including typhoid and malaria, and more recently, an mpox outbreak, with more than 47 000 suspected cases and at least 1 000 suspected deaths from the disease.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
WHO experts to probe mystery disease in DRC
More than 100 epidemic emergencies in Africa since January