The health minister in the Democratic Republic of Congo says the government is on alert over a mystery flu-like disease that in recent weeks has killed dozens of people, nearly half of them children.
Authorities have so far confirmed 71 deaths, including 27 people who died in hospitals and 44 in the community in the southern Kwango province, Health Minister Roger Kamba said.
"The Congolese government is on general alert regarding this disease," Kamba said, without providing more details.
Of the victims at the hospitals, 10 died due to lack of blood transfusion and 17 as a result of respiratory problems, he said.
Authorities have said that symptoms include fever, headache, cough and anaemia.Â
The deaths were recorded between November 10 and November 25 in the Panzi health zone of Kwango province.
The Panzi health zone, located about 700km from the capital Kinshasa, is a remote area of the Kwango province, making it hard to access.
Epidemiological experts are in the region to take samples and investigate the disease, the health minister said.
The health minister of Kwango province, Apollinaire Yumba, said medical workers in the southwest of the country had found two more villages where at least 60 deaths had been recorded.
According to Yumba, 382 people with symptoms of the disease have been registered so far.
Yumba said the medical experts have tried to encourage the population to practice hygiene and physical distancing.
Jean Kaseya, the head of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters that more details about the disease should be known in the next 48 hours as experts receive results from laboratory samples of infected people.
"First diagnostics are leading us to think it is a respiratory disease," Kaseya said.
"But we need to wait for the laboratory results".
He added that there are many things that are still unknown about the disease - including whether it is infectious and how it is transmitted.
A Panzi resident, Claude Niongo, said his wife and seven-year-old daughter died from the disease.
"We do not know the cause but I only noticed high fevers, vomiting ... and then death," Niongo told the Associated Press over the phone.
"Now, the authorities are talking to us about an epidemic but in the meantime, there is a problem of care (and) people are dying," he added.
DR Congo is already plagued by the mpox epidemic, with more than 47,000 suspected cases and about 1000 suspected deaths from the disease in the central African country, according to the World Health Organisation.
with DPA
