The Ministry of Health of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has confirmed that the outbreak of an unidentified disease and therefore called disease “X”It is a severe form of malaria. At the moment, the outbreak has affected about 600 people and caused more than 80 deaths in nine health areas of the country. Specifically, it circulates through the southwestern province of Kwango.
«The mystery has finally been solved. “This is a case of severe malaria in the form of a respiratory disease,” the Ministry of Health said in a statement, adding that malnutrition in the area had weakened the local population, making them more vulnerable to the disease. Symptoms of the disease are fever, headache, cough, runny nose and body aches, and its mortality already reaches 6.2%.
WHO help
The first cases appeared in the Panzi health area, in Kinshasa, at the end of October 2024, with the majority of affected children, 40% under 5 years of age. Of the first 27 deaths in health centers, 21 were under 10 years old.
Provincial Health Minister Apollinaire Yumba told Reuters that anti-malaria drugs provided by the World Health Organization were being distributed at the main hospital and health centers in the Panzi health zone. A WHO spokesman said that on WednesdayMore first aid kits were due to arrive for moderate and critical cases.
For his part, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared last week that 10 first samples from patients in the Congo suffering from a mysterious disease had tested positive for malariabut that he had not ruled out the possibility that they suffered from other concurrent diseases.
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