People are being urged to avoid “mass gatherings” in the Congolese province at the center of the mysterious disease outbreak that has killed up to 143 people.
The country’s Health Ministry also warned people to wash their hands regularly with soap and water and not to touch dead bodies.
A total of 376 people have fallen ill due to the outbreak that has affected Kwango province, in the southwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The patients are mostly children over 15 years old, officials say, and suffer from a flu-like illness with symptoms that include fever, headache, runny nose, cough, difficulty breathing and anemia (or lack of red blood cells healthy).
In response, the ministry sent a team of health workers to treat the sick and analyze samples to identify the possible disease behind the outbreak.
The World Health Organization has also been alerted to the outbreak and has sent a team to the area to investigate the disease.
No information on test results has been released to date and officials have not speculated about the illness behind the outbreak.
This comes as the Democratic Republic of the Congo is also battling a terrible outbreak of monkeypox, or mpox, which has sickened 12,500 people and caused 581 deaths.
Pictured above is a doctor talking to a patient about treating monkeypox in the South Kivu region in September this year.
The map above shows the Democratic Republic of the Congo and highlights the Kwango province where the outbreak occurred.
Infections have been detected throughout the country, including the province that is experiencing the mysterious outbreak of the disease.
It is unclear whether monkeypox has been ruled out as a potential cause; However, the symptoms it causes, such as a rash on the genitals or other areas, appear to be different.
The country has also previously reported 12 Ebola outbreaks. In one of the outbreaks, in 2020, the virus killed 2,267 people.
Ebola usually begins with a sore throat and muscle and joint pain before progressing to nausea, abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting.
Officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have suggested that the disease causing the mysterious outbreak can spread through the air, similar to Covid.
Ebola, monkeypox and the Marburg virus, which has also caused outbreaks in the country, are transmitted through skin-to-skin contact or body fluids with patients.
Authorities reported yesterday that 143 people had died, but a government official later clarified to the Associated Press that the death toll ranged between 67 and 143.
Today, the country’s Health Ministry said 79 people had died in the mysterious outbreak.
The outbreak is reported to have started on October 24 this year and cases are said to have increased rapidly in recent weeks.
The Ministry added in your update: ‘Laboratory test results will be communicated as soon as they are available and regular updates will be shared with the public and partners.
“Pending the conclusions of the ongoing investigations, the Ministry asks the population to remain calm, vigilant and to strictly respect the… preventive measures.”
They added: “The ministry… expresses its deep compassion to the families affected by this tragedy and sends its deepest condolences.”
Authorities said yesterday that the situation was “extremely worrying” and added that the death toll was rising rapidly.
Patients suffering from this mysterious disease were said to die in their own homes and struggle to receive treatment.
A local epidemiologist said women and children were the most severely affected by the disease.
A WHO spokesperson said Tuesday that the U.N. health agency had been alerted to the presence of the disease last week and was working alongside Congo’s Public Health Ministry to conduct further investigations.
The country was rocked by a failed presidential coup earlier this year, which led to a military court sentencing a British citizen and three American citizens to death.