Mysterious disease in Congo mostly strikes children
A mysterious disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo has infected more than 400 people and killed more than 30, mostly children, according to the World Health Organization.
The WHO was informed just two weeks ago about the outbreak, which is centered in a remote area of the central African nation, in the country’s southwestern province of Kwango, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a Tuesday briefing.
Symptoms of the flu-like disease so far include headaches, cough, fever, breathing difficulties, and anemia.
Ten of 12 initial samples from victims came back positive for malaria, suggesting that patients may have been suffering from multiple illnesses at once, Ghebreyesus said. Everyone who fell severely ill from the mysterious disease was also severely malnourished, which weakens immunity.
A team of experts, including epidemiologists, clinicians, laboratory technicians, and infection prevention and control specialists to address the disease, arrived earlier Tuesday after taking several days to arrive in Panzi due to challenges traveling during the rainy season, Ghebreyesus told reporters.
Of the 416 people sickened and 31 killed by the disease, most have been children, and a significant number have been under the age of 5, he said. Previous reporting suggested most of the infections were in people over the age of 15. Local authorities had told Reuters that 143 people have succumbed to the illness since late October.
The Panzi health zone of Kwango is a rural, remote community over 400 miles from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The WHO said access by road ‒ around 48 hours from Kinshasa ‒ is difficult during the rainy season, and communication is limited, which has limited identification of the disease.
On Monday, a WHO spokesperson in Kinshasa told USA TODAY that initial samples collected in Panzi weren’t in optimal condition for lab analysis, so medical teams had to collect new samples.
The samples will help identify the pathogen or combination of pathogens that could be causing the illness. Current candidates include flu, pneumonia, a coronavirus like COVID-19 and measles.
WHO researchers are also trying to understand how the disease transmits from person to person and are looking for other people who may be infected or may have died from the disease.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has a weak health system and remains torn by civil war, making it difficult to provide adequate health services to large segments of the country.
Amid investigations into this mysterious disease, the WHO, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and local health officials have been trying to respond to mpox outbreaks on the far side of the Democratic Republic of Congo that triggered a global health emergency.
A strain of the infectious disease, different from the one circulating in the U.S., hit Congo hard in 2024. The country has had approximately 9,900 confirmed mpox cases and 45,800 suspected cases, according to Africa CDC data.
As of Tuesday, 1,153 people have died from mpox in Congo.
Contributing: Adrianna Rodriguez and Karen Weintraub of USA TODAY, Reuters
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