United States: An unknown sickness resembling flu has claimed 143 lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa in the last month, various reports indicate.
Other officials informed The Associated Press that they are “on alert.”
Symptoms and Impact
These are manifested in the southwestern province of Kwango, where at least 376 cases of the disease have been reported since the end of October, as reported by FluTrackers.com based on local media reports, as reported by USA Today.
Among them, they said they fell sick with flu-like illness, which included high fever and severe headache, as reported by Reuters. The disease seems to have the most profound impact on females and children above the age of 15.
WHO and Global Attention
Rémy Saki, the deputy provincial governor said to The Associated Press that a team of epidemiological experts will be dispatched to the region in order to take samples of the virus and conduct an assessment.
The country informed the WHO about the outbreak last week, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota reported.
Concurrent Health Challenges
As authorities race to identify the disease, the research center has been combating another infectious outbreak: mpox. The WHO African region identified the country with more than 14,000 mpox cases and 650 deaths in 2023, which is the highest compared to other nations, as reported by USA Today.
It has nearly 8,000 infections and over 380 death by mpox by early May 2024.