Health officials say mystery disease in DRC is severe malaria. kamala harris news
Health officials said the disease presents as a respiratory disease.
A previously unknown disease spreading in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a severe form of malaria, the country’s health ministry has announced.
Health officials said Tuesday that the disease spreading in southwestern Kwango province is manifesting as a respiratory disease.
Earlier this month, local officials said 143 people had died from the disease in the country’s Panji health region in November, as fears grew about the mysterious disease.
“The mystery has finally been solved. This is a case of severe malaria in the form of a respiratory disease,” the public health ministry said in a statement, adding that malnutrition in the area has weakened the local population, making them more vulnerable to the disease.
The statement said 592 cases have been reported since October, with a mortality rate of 6.2 percent.
Provincial Health Minister Apollinaire Yumba told Reuters news agency that anti-malaria medicine provided by the World Health Organization was being distributed to the main hospital and health centers in the Panzi health region.
A WHO spokesman said more health kits for moderate and severe cases were arriving on Wednesday.
Symptoms of this disease are fever, headache, cough, runny nose and body ache.
According to national health officials, the majority of cases and deaths are in children under the age of 14, with the majority of cases represented by children under the age of five.
“Respiratory distress was observed in some children and some others who died,” Congo’s health minister Roger Kamba said earlier this month, adding that some patients were suffering from anemia, a factor in some of the deaths linked to the disease. .
WHO said the disease outbreak is about 700 km (435 mi) from the DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, with the Panzi health region being “rural and remote”, adding to the challenges in its investigation.
A doctor at Panji Hospital told Al Jazeera last week that the facility was not adequately equipped to deal with the outbreak.
According to the Severe Malaria Observatory, DRC has the second highest number of malaria cases and deaths globally. According to the observatory, malaria is also the leading cause of death in the country.