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“Unknown” disease, dozens dead: four questions on a troubling situation in the DRC

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, on "maximum alert", has put forward several explanatory hypotheses, while the WHO has sent a team to the site to analyse samples.

By Nicolas Berrod
December 5 , 2024 at 2:48 p.m.

Five years after the emergence of Covid , a new “unknown virus” could cause trouble in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) . Hundreds of people have fallen ill, dozens of them have died.

The situation is nevertheless very different and does not inspire the same concern on a global scale, although it intrigues scientists. "We are on maximum alert," stressed this Thursday the Minister of Public Health of the DRC, Samuel Roger Kamba Mulamba, during a press conference. We take stock.

1. What happened?

In late November, the government of the central African country was warned that many people were suffering from symptoms resembling severe flu syndrome (high fever, headache, runny nose, anemia, etc.) in a remote area of ​​the country called Panzi. This area has " 71% of children suffering from malnutrition , one of the highest rates in the country," the Minister of Health said. 40% of the sick are children.

2. What is the exact death toll?

It is still uncertain, but it amounts to several dozen deaths minimum. "An unknown public health event" detected since October 24 has "already caused the death of 27 people out of a total of 382 people affected", according to the National Institute of Public Health, Hygiene and Social Prevention, in a report dated Tuesday evening.

But in a press release published on its Facebook page on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, the DRC Ministry of Public Health mentioned a much higher number, namely 79 deaths among 376 patients. And the day before, Tuesday, local authorities had indicated to the Reuters agency that the toll had risen to... 143 deaths!

Minister Samuel Roger Kamba Mulamba gave details this Thursday. 27 people died of this same disorder in hospital, including 10 due to a lack of transfusion, and 44 succumbed in other places. That is 71 in total, provided that the death is really still linked to this disease.

3. What are the possible hypotheses?

There are many. It could be a cluster of an already known disease, such as Ebola , hemorrhagic fever or virulent flu. The hypothesis of a less severe disease, such as Covid, seems unlikely due to the very high mortality rate. But it is not ruled out, as the population is generally in poor health and therefore more at risk of serious illness. The possibility of a new virus is not excluded either. In any case, "we can talk about a respiratory disease, because people die of severe respiratory distress," says Minister Samuel Roger Kamba Mulamba.

The mystery is all the more difficult to solve since "the DRC is one of the poorest countries on the planet but also one of the hottest spots for epidemic emergence," says epidemiologist Antoine Flahault. It has been the most affected by mpox (ex-monkeypox) for a year, for example. Due to a lack of resources (screening, prevention, etc.) and without a developed health system, it is complicated or even impossible to quickly identify the pathogen in question.

4. What are health authorities doing?

A doctor, three epidemiologists, a laboratory manager and several experts were dispatched to the scene as soon as the alert was received at the end of November, indicated Samuel Roger Kamba Mulamba. As access was difficult, they took two days to arrive. A first consolidated assessment was therefore announced on Tuesday, December 3.

The World Health Organization told us on Thursday that it had sent a team to the site "to collect samples for laboratory analysis." When asked when the results might be available, the agency was unable to respond. The DRC government expects them by the end of the week.