The World Health Organization said on Thursday that its “research is deepened” in a mystery disease suspected of murdering more than 60 people in the North Democratic Republic for the last five weeks, warning that it was still spreading.
What he said to a statement On Thursday, which, along with the Congo’s health officials, was “conducting subsequent investigations to determine the cause of another group of community diseases and deaths” in the province of Ecuateur, marking the third time this year the disease surveillance teams have identified an increase in diseases and deaths in the region.
“The most recent cluster took place in the Basankusu Health Zone, where last week 141 people fell ill, without death,” said the United Nations World Health Agency. “In the same health zone, 158 cases and 58 deaths were reported in the same health zone in early February. In January, the Bolamba Health Zone denounced 12 people who fell sick, including 8 deaths.”
The Oms Africa office said early this week That the first outbreak was found among several children who ate a bat and then died in 48 hours after suffering symptoms of hemorrhagic fever, similar to Ebola or Marburg viruses.
World Health Organization African Region
The deaths occurred in a village, Boloko, and affected people of all ages, but young adolescents and adults seemed to be the most susceptible.
Concern about the first line impact of Trump’s help cuts
When several unexplained cases of disease occurred, a team of health care officials and international “virus hunters” immediately enter to investigate the outbreak, determine who was the first case (“zero zero”) and work to identify, contain and treat the disease.
But these teams have been affected by the Trump Administration recent United States Foreign Aid cutsA health care official in the region told CBS News on Thursday.
During the first meeting of Mr. Trump’s Second Administration Cabinet Wednesday, Elon Musk, a member who was not a cabinet their department of education oriented to efficiency had mistakenly canceled Ebola programs as Were headed to USAID.
“We are all mistaken, but when we are wrong, we fix it quickly and, in the case of USAID, we accidentally canceled it very briefly, Ebola, the prevention of Ebola. I think we all want to prevent Ebola, so we restored it and there was no interruption,” said Musk.
However, a U.S. health care official who spoke with CBS News played that the help had been restored. They said that locally trained health workers in some of the hot areas of infectious disease in Africa have not been paid and that some have been completely rejected due to USAID cuts.
The United States has been the largest international donor in the Congo health sector and financing has helped to form epidemiologists to do the fieldwork that identifies and controls the outbreaks of diseases. It is unclear how President Trump’s financing cuts will affect the fields on the ground, but there is a widespread concern among health officials, with a virus hunter that tells CBS News that the region faces a “perfect storm” for the possible spread of infectious diseases, including those of new ones.
Race to identify the disease of the mystery
In the north of the Congo, health officials have been looking for anyone with a general illness or a disease that adapts to a “wide case definition” that includes fever, chills, headache, nose bleeding, cough, vomiting, diarrhea, rigid neck and muscle or joint.
On February 19, the WHO said that 943 people had been identified with these symptoms, including 52 who had died.
The results of the tests published on February 13 showed that the first cases were not Ebola or Marburg, but half of the samples were positive in malaria. According to health officials, the previous samples of alleged cases were not “viable”, so the Retest delayed the diagnostic process. WHO officials perform subsequent tests, seeking the possibility of meningitis and food, water and other environmental samples in the affected region.
Officials say they are looking for unusual patterns in the cases of mystery disease, increasing both the disease surveillance and the treatment for other diseases, such as malaria, meningitis and typhoid fever.
A regional health team arrived in the Basankusu Health Zone, which is located about 110 kilometers from the Bolamba area, on February 16, and was incorporated six days later by a national quick response team from the Ministry of Health and two WHO epidemiologists. They have been collecting samples of blood and urine and taking oral and nasal tampons to test to try to identify the disease.
“These diseases do not know boundaries.”
The distance from the affected areas and the limited of the Congo’s national health system and the poor roads and telephone infrastructures have contributed to the challenges of diagnosing and containing the disease.
About 1,000 kilometers away, at the East of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the rebel group M23, which is supported by Rwanda, according to the United Nations, has. caught large strips of territory In the region rich in minerals, promoting refugees in the camps and adding to the burden of a health sector that is already struggling.
Sarah Olsen, the Wildlife Conservation Society Health Research Director, told CBS News on Thursday that Ebola, Marburg’s outbreaks and other diseases, such as the one who did not yet killed the northern Congo people, had become the new normality, adding a call to the global community to be ready.
“ The reality is that there have been multiple outbreaks of Ebola throughout Africa in recent months, and now this mystery disease in the Congo is very dangerous. We simply do not know enough, ” he said, adding a warning: “ These diseases do not know borders. Now is the time to increase funding and surveillance before one of these diseases ends in a new city center and begins a new pandemic center. ”
