Post Reply - Mystery illness in the Congo. 50 dead.

Over the past 3 months we've seen several reports of a `mystery' outbreak in the DRC (see WHO DON: Undiagnosed disease - Democratic Republic of the Congo), and while that first outbreak was eventually attributed to a combination of severe Malaria and malnutrition, there have been more recent, similar outbreaks reported in the DRC. 

The latest report comes from Equateur province, and while both Ebola and Marburg have been ruled out - and roughly half of the cases tested were positive for malaria -  the cause of this outbreak remains unknown. 

While most `mystery' outbreaks turn out to be due to something already known (malnutrition, measles, malaria, meningitis, contaminated food or water, etc.), every once in a while something more exotic is at work. 

-

Increased disease surveillance has identified in total of 1096 sick people and 60 deaths in Basankusu and Bolomba fitting a broad case definition that includes fever, headache, chills, sweating, stiff neck, muscle aches, multiple joint pain and body aches, a runny or bleeding from nose, cough, vomiting and diarrhoea.