The World Health Organization said Thursday that its “investigation deepened” in a mystery disease suspected of having killed more than 60 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the past five weeks, warning that it continues to spread.
The one who said in a declaration Thursday that, with Congo health officials, he “set up additional surveys to determine the cause of another group of community diseases and deaths” in the equator province, marking the third time this year, the disease monitoring teams have identified an increase in the disease and deaths in the region.
“The most recent cluster occurred in the Basankusu health zone, where last week 141 additional people fell ill, without reported death,” said the United Nations World Agency. “In the same health area, 158 cases and 58 deaths were reported in the same health area earlier in February.
The WHO African Office said earlier this week The fact that the first epidemic was one of several children who ate a bat and then died within 48 hours after experiencing symptoms of hemorrhagic fever, similar to those caused by Ebola or Marburg viruses.
World Health Organization African Region
Deaths occurred in a village, Boloko, and people affected by all ages, however, adolescents and young adults seemed the most sensitive.
Concern about the first -line impact of Trump’s help reductions
When a certain number of unexplained cases of illness arise, a team of health officials and international “virus hunters immediately enter to investigate the epidemic, determine who was the first case -” patient zero ” – and work to identify, contain and treat the disease.
But these teams were emptied by the recent Foreign aid cuts in the United StatesA health official who works in the region said on Thursday.
At the first meeting of the Cabinet of Mr. Trump’s second administration on Wednesday, the non-member of the cabinet, Elon Musk, said that managers with its DOGE department oriented towards efficiency had mistakenly canceled Ebola programs as They targeted USAID.
“We all make mistakes, but when we make mistakes, we install it quickly, and in the case of USAID, we have accidentally canceled, very briefly, Ebola, Ebola Prevention. I think we all want the prevention of Ebola, so we have restored it and there was no interruption,” said Musk.
An American health official who spoke with CBS News challenged that the aid had however been restored. They said locally trained health agents in some of the hot areas of infectious disease in Africa have not been paid, and some have been completely rejected due to USAID cuts.
The United States has long been the largest international donor in the Congo health sector, and funding has helped train epidemiologists to do the field work that identifies and controls epidemics of disease. We do not know how President Trump’s financing cuts will affect teams in the field, but there is a general concern among health officials, a virus hunter indicating to CBS News that the region is confronted with “a perfect storm” for the potential propagation of infectious diseases, including new possibilities.
Race to identify the mystery disease
In the north of Congo, health officials have sought any person with a general disease or a disease that corresponds to a “wider case definition” which includes fever, chills, headaches, nose bleeding, coughing, vomiting, diarrhea, stiff neck and muscles or pain joints
On February 19, WHO said 943 people with such symptoms had been identified, including 52 who died.
The results of the tests published on February 13 showed that the first cases were not Ebola or Marburg, but half of the samples were tested positive for malaria. The previous samples of suspicious cases, according to health officials, were “not viable”, so the retaining delayed the diagnostic process. WHO officials carry out other tests, also examining the possibility of meningitis and testing food samples, water and other environmental samples in the affected region.
The officials say they are looking for unusual patterns in the event of mystery disease by increasing both monitoring and treatment of diseases for other diseases such as malaria, meningitis and typhoid fever.
A regional health team arrived in the Basankkusu health zone, about 110 miles from the Bolamba area on February 16, and it was joined six days later by a national team of rapid intervention of the Ministry of Health and two epidemiologists. They collected samples of blood and urine and took oral and nasal swabs for tests in order to identify the disease.
“These diseases do not know borders.”
The distance from the affected areas and the limited national health system of the Congo and bad roads and telephone infrastructure have all contributed to the challenges of the diagnosis and content of the disease.
About 1,000 miles away, in the Far East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the rebel group M23 – which is supported by Rwanda, according to the United Nations – captured large area of territory In the region rich in minerals, pushing refugees in the camps and increasing the burden of a health sector already in difficulty.
Sarah Olsen, director of health research at the Wildlife Conservation Society, told CBS News on Thursday that the epidemics of Ebola, Marburg and other diseases, as the still unidentified person killing people in the north of Congo, had become the new normal, adding a call to the world community to be ready to answer.
“The reality is that there have been several Ebola epidemics across Africa in recent months, and now this mystery disease in the Congo is super dangerous. We simply do not know enough,” she said, adding a warning: “These diseases do not know the limits. It is now the time to increase a new alertness.
Sarah Carter
