Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is on “high alert” for an illness of unknown origin, 382 cases of which have been identified, including at least 71 deaths, in a remote area of ​​the country’s west and which appears to be respiratory, it was announced on Thursday Congolese Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba Mulamba said.

After his ministry said on Tuesday in 79 people died from the disease in the Panzi regionIn Kwango Province, Mulamba updated these figures this Thursday, clarifying that 27 people died in health facilities, including 10 who failed to receive the blood transfusion they needed, while a further 44 people were registered as dead by the community.

For his part, Kwango Provincial Health Minister Apollinaire Yumba Tiabakwau said in statements to local media that death toll rises to 135a figure that has not been confirmed by national authorities.

Symptoms of the strange condition include fever, headaches, runny nose and cough, difficulty breathing and anemia.

“We are on maximum combat readiness, that is We consider this to be epidemic level. This is something we must monitor as closely as possible,” Minister Mulamba said at a press conference in the Congolese capital Kinshasa, emphasizing that children under the age of five account for about 40% of detected cases.

While they’re waiting to get test results establish a clear diagnosis within 24–48 hoursMulamba noted that the observed symptoms indicate a respiratory type of illness, although it is unclear whether this is a bacterial or viral pathology.

“We are discussing with all specialists (…) to see the first hypotheses that we can put forward,” the minister said.

The wait revolves around Panzi, a very remote area where a team of experts sent by It took ‘two days’ for the Congolese government to arrive after receiving the alarmdoes not have laboratory capacity, so the collected samples had to be sent to another location located about 500 kilometers away.

“The mortality rate is about 7.5 – 8% This makes us think it’s not covid“The Minister stressed, although he acknowledged, that the fragility of the population in the affected area could mean that a possible Covid outbreak would have more deadly consequences.

In this sense, he emphasized that Panzi suffers high rates of child malnutrition and is currently facing not only measles, but also seasonal influenza, which may hit residents harder due to these vulnerabilities.

Experts also do not know whether the anemia found in some of the deceased is a symptom of the disease or related to nutritional deficiencies and high rates of malaria reported in the area, which was also hit by an outbreak of typhoid fever two years ago.

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According to Congolese authorities, cases began to be reported on October 24 last year, but The first alarm reached them only at the end of November.after which a team of three epidemiologists was “immediately” sent to the area.

“The team is creating a symptom map so we can properly characterize what is happening,” Mulamba said.

“We have everything we need to respond to the epidemic. we have protection against infections, we have medicines“But we need diagnostics,” he added, acknowledging that rural health services in the country do not have many of the resources to respond to respiratory illnesses, such as oxygen.

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In another virtual press conference held this Thursday, John Kaseya, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), announced that the African Union (AU) public health agency will send a team of experts to the site to help the Congolese authorities.

“There are a lot of things we don’t know, even what the mode of transmission is,” said Kaseya, also from Kinshasa, stressing that epidemiological surveillance systems need to be strengthened in the country to prevent the outbreak from taking weeks to be discovered again. (EFE)