Health officers difficulty dire warning as mysterious flu-like sickness kills 143

People are being urged to avoid ‘mass gatherings’ in the Congolese province at the center of the mystery disease outbreak that has killed up to 143 people.

The country’s health ministry also warned people to wash their hands regularly with soap and water and not to touch dead bodies.

A total of 376 people have been sickened in the outbreak, that has hit Kwango province in the southwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Patients are mostly children over 15 years old, officials say, and are suffering from a flu-like illness with symptoms including a fever, headache, nasal discharge, cough, difficulty breathing and anemia — or a lack of healthy red blood cells.

In response, the ministry has sent a team of health workers to treat sick people and test samples in order to identify the potential disease behind the outbreak.

The World Health Organization has also been alerted over the outbreak, and has sent a team to the area to investigate the illness.

No information on the results of the tests has been released to date, and officials have not speculated as to the disease behind the outbreak.

It comes as the DRC also battles a raging outbreak of monkeypox, or mpox, that has sickened 12,500 people and led to 581 deaths.  

Pictured above is a doctor speaking to a patient about treating monkeypox in the South Kivu region in September this year

The above map shows the DRC, and highlights the province of Kwango where the outbreak has been recorded

Infections have been detected across the country, including in the province that is recording the mysterious disease outbreak. 

It is not clear whether monkeypox has been ruled out as a potential cause, however its main symptom — a rash on the genitals or other areas — are yet to be reported.

The country has also previously reported 12 outbreaks of Ebola. In one of the outbreaks, from 2020, the virus killed 2,267 people.

Ebola usually starts with a sore throat and aches and pains in the muscles and joints before progressing to nausea, abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting.

Dr Krutika Kuppalli, an internal medicine expert and associate professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said that at this stage it was difficult to tell what was causing the outbreak because only general symptoms had been reported.

‘We need more information,’ she told DailyMail.com, ‘the information that has been provided at present speaks of a number of diseases’.

Asked whether it could be monkeypox or Ebola, she said: ‘In what they are reporting, we have not seen any reports of skin rash or skin abnormality — which would go with mpox.

‘Typically, with viral hemorrhagic fever [like Ebola] you would hear reports of coughing or throwing up blood, and that has not been reported either.’

She added: ‘The reports are concerning, but we need more data and more information about the symptoms they are seeing on the ground.’  

Officials reported yesterday that 143 people had died, but a government official later clarified to the Associated Press that the death toll was between 67 and 143 fatalities.

Today, the country’s health ministry said that 79 people had died in the mystery outbreak.

The outbreak is reported to have begun on October 24 this year, with cases said to have risen rapidly within the last few weeks. 

The Ministry added in its update: ‘Laboratory test results will be communicated as soon as they are available, and regular updates will be shared with the population and partners.

‘Pending the conclusions of the ongoing investigations, the Ministry calls on the population to remain calm, vigilant and to strictly respect the… preventive measures.’

They added: ‘The ministry… expresses its deep compassion to the families affected by this tragedy and sends them its most sincere condolences.’

Officials said yesterday that the situation was ‘extremely worrying’ and added that the death toll was rising rapidly.

Patients suffering from the mystery illness were said to be dying in their own homes and struggling to receive treatment.  

A local epidemiologist said women and children were the most seriously affected by the disease.

A WHO spokesperson said on Tuesday the UN health agency had been alerted to the presence of the disease last week, and it was working alongside Congo’s public health ministry to make further investigations.

The country was rocked by a failed presidential coup earlier this year, which led to a British citizen and three American citizens being sentence to death by a military court.