Viral infections can take a fatal turn if left untreated. A ‘Disease X’ alerted a health official at the World Health Organization (WHO). Since last October, a mysterious illness has taken over
Viral infections can take a fatal turn if left untreated. A ‘Disease X’ has alerted a health official from the World Health Organization (WHO). Since last October, a mysterious disease has plagued that state of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At least 79 cases have reportedly been reported and hundreds of people affected.
“The first diagnoses lead us to think that it is a respiratory disease,” said Jean Kaseya, director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “But we have to wait for the results from the laboratory.” He added that many things are still unknown about the disease, including whether it is infectious and how it is transmitted.
All about disease X, the mysterious flu
Research is still being done on symptoms, prevention and cure; There are certain common signs that infected people have shown so far.
Symptoms of disease
- Fever
- Headache
- Cough
- Anemia
- Vomiting
As #DRC 🇨🇩intensifies efforts to determine the cause of an undiagnosed illness reported in #Grasshopper, @WHO is deploying more experts to join the national response team composed of epidemiologists, doctors, laboratory technicians and infection prevention, control and risk… pic.twitter.com/iEUbJujI5m
— WHO Africa Region (@WHOAFRO) December 6, 2024
Congolese authorities have so far confirmed 71 deaths, including 27 people who died in hospitals and 44 in the community in the southern province of Kwango, Health Minister Roger Kamba said Thursday.
It took two days for epidemiology experts to get there, Congo’s health minister said. Due to a lack of testing capacity, samples had to be taken to Kikwit, more than 500 kilometers away, said Dieudonné Mwamba, director of the National Institute of Public Health.
WHO is currently deploying experts to assist health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with investigations to determine the cause of an as-yet undiagnosed illness that has been reported in Panzi.
The deaths were recorded between November 10 and 25 in the Panzi health zone, in Kwango province. According to the minister, there were around 380 cases, almost half of which were children under five years old.
