Mystery illness puts Congolese health officials on general alert

PRETORIA, December 5. /TASS/. The Democratic Republic of the Congo put its health care system on full alert over an unidentified disease affecting people in the southwest of the country, Health Minister Roger Kamba said.
“We are on maximum alert,” he said at a news conference in the capital Kinshasa, according to AFP. “We believe that the epidemic has reached a level where it should be closely monitored.”
According to the minister, the disease is spreading from its center in the Kwango province, 700 kilometers from Kinshasa. Health officials describe the ailment, which was first detected at the end of October, as “previously unknown.”
Kamba said the disease killed 27 people in hospitals, with 17 of the deaths caused by respiratory failure, and the rest by a severe form of anemia. Kwango authorities reported 143 deaths and 376 infected people.
The symptoms include fever and severe headache.
“We don’t know if we are dealing with a viral or bacterial disease,” said the director general of the country’s National Public Health Institute, Dieudonne Mwamba.
How the disease is transmitted remains unknown. Experts working in Congo are inclined to believe that it is a respiratory disease. They said it is not a COVID variant.
According to the latest data, 40% of all deaths happen among children under the age of five.
Several research teams are now working in Kwango to establish the source of the disease and its biological mechanism.