The northwest of the Congo is struggling with a mysterious and lethal disease attributable to contacts with bats: it is not ebola or Marburg fever.
The WHO health authorities in Africa gave news, in their weekly update bulletin, of a new health emergency in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the north-western province of Équateur two groups of cases of an unidentified illness occurred which caused, from 10 January to 15 February, 431 infections and 53 deaths, and which is fatal in 12% of cases.
The symptoms. The disease is at rapid progression, with half of the deaths that occurred so far within the first 48 hours of the infection. The symptoms include fever, vomiting, headache, muscle pain, fatigue, diarrhea, followed by internal bleeding. Eighteen samples taken from affected patients were brought to the capital of the Kinshasa Congo for analyzes, which have excluded that they are ebola virus disease or Marburg viruses, zoonosis that also affect the area.
Perhaps the origin in bats. In common with Ebola and Marburg fever, however, there are the hemorrhagic symptoms and the probable animal reserve of the pathogen at the origin of the mysterious disease. Preliminary investigations trace the first cases to three children under the five years of the village of Boloko, who would develop the symptoms between 10 and 13 January After consuming a bats of bats. The following week, four further deaths occurred in the same village in children and young people who developed the same symptoms. The village is located in the health area of Bolomba, where 12 cases in total have occurred, 8 of which are lethal. The other cases concern the health area of Basankusu, 180 km away, affected by 419 infections and 45 deaths.
The bats are natural tanks of a hundred lethal pathogens for man such as Ebola, Marburg virus, Mers, Nipah virus and, of course, the Coronavirus, passed through another animal vector before reaching humans.
The hypotheses on the causes. The rapid progression and spread of the disease make you think to a serious infection or a toxic agent. After the exclusion of Ebola and Marburg viruses, we investigate for differential diagnosis on malaria, hemorrhagic viral fever, food or water poisoning, typhoid and meningitis fever. The precarious hygienic-sanitary conditions, the scarcity of adequate medical personnel and health facilities and the widespread conditions of malnutrition complicate the investigations and aggravate the clinical picture of the patients.
One of the many emergencies. The news falls on a country already torn by various emergencies of public health and humanitarian. The area affected by the mysterious disease is located several hundred kilometers away from Goma, the city in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo finished in the hands of the rebels of the Ribelle Ribelle group of the March 23 (M23) supported by Rwanda.
Just in Goma, a few weeks ago, the alarm for possible attacks on a biosyphicity laboratory for the study of Ebola and other lethal viruses with epidemic potential, hosted in the city, had spread a few weeks ago.
The last unknown disease. Also in Congo, the alarm on the alleged diffusion of a mysterious disease that had infected hundreds of people in the southwestern part of the country had broken, at the end of 2024. It was later discovered that they were respiratory infections complicated by malaria.
