Crying disease in Congo: All you need to know about the illnesses that have sickened over 400 people

Several kids lost their lives in Africa’s Congo due to ’mysterious virus.’(AP)

Unidentified illnesses in northwestern Congo have claimed over 50 lives in the past five weeks, with nearly half of the victims dying within hours of feeling unwell.

The outbreaks, which have affected two remote villages in Equateur province, began on January 21. "As of now, there have been 419 reported cases and 53 deaths. Health officials are still uncertain about the cause of the illnesses and whether the two outbreaks, which are more than 120 miles (190 kilometers) apart, are linked. The mode of transmission remains unclear, including whether the diseases are contagious," reported AP.

The first reported deaths occurred in the village of Boloko, where three children who ate a bat passed away within 48 hours. The World Health Organization (WHO) Africa office confirmed this development this week. Meanwhile, a larger outbreak in the village of Bomate has affected over 400 people, some of whom have been diagnosed with malaria.

Both outbreaks have occurred in two distant villages located in different health zones of Equateur province, approximately 400 miles (640 kilometers) from Kinshasa. The outbreak in Boloko was traced back to the consumption of bat meat, while the Bomate outbreak involved a broader range of symptoms, including malaria.

Dr. Serge Ngalebato, the medical director of Bikoro Hospital and a government expert responding to the outbreak, noted that the two villages present different challenges. "The first village, with its high death rate, is being closely investigated as it's an unusual situation, whereas in Bomate, we see a high number of malaria cases," he told AP.

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The WHO has expressed concern over the rapid progression from illness to death in Boloko and the large number of fatalities in Bomate. According to Congo’s Ministry of Health, about 80% of patients share common symptoms, such as fever, chills, body aches, and diarrhea. These symptoms, while typical of many infections, initially raised fears that the illness might be a hemorrhagic fever like Ebola, which can be transmitted by infected animals.

However, Ebola and other similar diseases, such as Marburg, have been ruled out after more than a dozen samples were tested in Kinshasa. The WHO is currently investigating several potential causes, including malaria, viral hemorrhagic fevers, food or water poisoning, typhoid fever, and meningitis.

Experts have been sent to the affected villages since February 14 to assist with the investigation and control the spread of the disease. Dr. Ngalebato reported that patients have shown positive responses to treatments aimed at the various symptoms.

The remote location of the villages has made it difficult for medical teams to access patients, while Congo’s limited healthcare infrastructure has hindered efforts to monitor and treat cases. This situation is a recurring challenge during disease outbreaks in the country. In December, a similar, unidentified illness led to dozens of deaths.

In some instances, victims passed away before experts could even reach them, according to Dr. Ngalebato. The WHO has called for urgent action to speed up laboratory investigations, improve case management, enhance isolation capabilities, and strengthen surveillance and risk communication.

The U.S. has been the largest bilateral donor to Congo’s health sector and has supported the training of hundreds of field epidemiologists to detect and control diseases across the country. The outbreaks were detected during a period when the Trump administration had imposed a temporary freeze on foreign aid as part of a 90-day review.

There have been ongoing concerns about diseases jumping from animals to humans, particularly in regions where people commonly consume wild animals. The WHO reported in 2022 that such outbreaks in Africa have increased by over 60% in the past decade.

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Experts believe that this may be the case in Congo, where the vast forests of the Congo Basin, home to the largest tropical forest on Earth, provide a natural reservoir for many viruses. “These viruses have reservoirs in the forest, so as long as we have these forests, we will continue to face occasional epidemics with viruses that mutate,” explained Gabriel Nsakala, a public health professor at Congo's National Pedagogical University, who has previously worked on Ebola and coronavirus response programs in the country.

(Inputs from AP)