After last year's Disease X, another mysterious and deadly illness that's being referred to as 'crying disease', is sweeping through parts of Congo. It has so far left over 50 dead and infected over 400 people. What's most terrifying about the disease is its ability to kill people within 48 hours of its onset, the WHO had confirmed on Monday.
The first outbreak was reported on January 21, when three little children (under 5-year-old) in the town of Bokolo ate a dead bat and fell ill after that. They had hemorrhagic fever symptoms and died within two days.
A second outbreak of the disease was also reported in Bomate on February 9 and after that samples from 13 cases were sent to the National Institute for Biomedical Research in Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, for testing, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
Symptoms of the mystery disease revealed
General symptomsThe healthy ministry of Congo has said that about 80% of the patients are showing symptoms like fever, chills, body aches, and diarrhea.
Internal bleedingThe symptoms recorded according to news agency Associated Press include fever, diarrhea, vomiting, and internal bleeding.
Joint pain and shortness of breath
Other symptoms include neck and joint pain, sweating, and shortness of breath, according to the reports.
Intense thirst, persistent crying
People aged 60 and below experienced intense thirst while infected children were known to cry persistently.
Difference between two outbreaks
Dr Serge Ngalebato, Bikoro Hospital's medical director, said the circumstances in the two outbreaks vary significantly. "The first one with a lot of deaths, that we continue to investigate because it's an unusual situation, (and) in the second episode that we're dealing with, we see a lot of the cases of malaria," he clarified.
Earlier a hemorrhagic fever was suspected, which was also linked to an infected animal, but both the possibility of Ebola and Marburg virus have been dismissed after over a dozen samples were collected and tested in Kinshasa, the capital.
In the most recent outbreaks, several victims died before they could reach them, according to Ngalebato, due to the remote nature of their locations.
Possible causes of the outbreak
As per WHO, it could be due to malaria, viral hemorrhagic fever, food or water poisoning, typhoid fever, and meningitis.
The WHO said the situation could be a ‘crisis’ which poses a ‘significant public health threat’ in its latest weekly Africa bulletin.
"The exact cause remains unknown, with Ebola and Marburg already ruled out, raising concerns about a severe infectious or toxic agent," it said.
"Urgent action is needed to accelerate laboratory investigations, improve case management and isolation capacities, and strengthen surveillance and risk communication. The remote location and weak health care infrastructure increase the risk of further spread, requiring immediate high-level intervention to contain the outbreak," it added.
Is it malaria?The tests show that almost half of the patients have malaria, which was also the case in a similar outbreak last year the country had reported. Also, many found to be infected with the disease are suffering from malnutrition.
Dr Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton in the UK, told the MailOnLine: "There is a huge amount of uncertainty about this outbreak.
"Outbreaks like this will happen many times around the world and are typically brought under control relatively quickly.
"However, here, it is concerning that we have hundreds of cases and over 50 deaths, with haemorrhagic-fever-like symptoms widely reported among those cases."
