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Deadly Flu-Like Disease Kills Dozens, Officials Race For Answers!

A mysterious flu-like illness claimed at least seventy lives, with health officials scrambling to identify the disease. The outbreak, affecting both adults and children, has raised urgent concerns as experts work to uncover the cause.

Congo's Health Minister Roger Kamba. Credit | AP

United States: Health officials in Africa called for vigilance on Thursday as Congo’s health minister said the government was concerned about a new, unidentified sickness resembling the flu that recently left scores of people dead.

More about the news

The director of Africa CDC, Jean Kaseya, said that more information about the disease should be released within 48 hours after experts have gathered a sample of the people affected by the disease.

Health officials have thus far verified 71 fatalities, which include 27 people in clinics and 44 in the community in the Southern Kwango province, as Roger Kamba, health minister, stated, as AP News reported.

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Ten of the victims died because they could not receive blood transfusion, and 17 others died as a result of respiratory difficulties, he said.

These included victims who died November 10-25 in the Panzi health zone of Kwango province. Out of them, there were about 380, which included 190 children below the age of five, according to the minister.

The Africa CDC reported nearly similar figures, with 376 cases and 79 deaths. Kaseya said that the gap arose from issues with the act of surveillance and the definition of cases.

What more have the experts found?

It produces fever, headache, cough, and anemia, according to the revelations of powers that be.

The minister said that epidemic experts in the region have taken samples and are analyzing the disease.

The Panzi health zone is approximately 435 miles or 700km from the capital, Kinshasa, and is situated in the comparatively hard-to-reach Kwango province.

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The epidemiological experts then took two days to get there, the minister added, as AP News reported.

Due to the absence of the test kits, samples were transported to Kikwit, which is over 500 kilometers from Kinshasa, said Dieudonne Mwamba, the Director of the National Institute of Public Health.

Mwamba added that Panzi was actually a “fragile” region, given that 40 percent of its population suffered from malnutrition.