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Health

Mysterious disease in DRCongo may be malaria associated with severe malnutrition and infection

More than two-thirds of patients with the mysterious illness in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRCongo) have tested positive for malaria, the African Union (AU) public health agency announced.

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Of the 29 PCR tests, 25 were positive, or 86.2 percent of cases, while of the 88 rapid diagnostic tests, 55 were positive, or 62.5 percent of cases, said epidemiologist Ngashi Ngongo, head of executive office of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), in an online press conference from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

In the wake of these results, the public health agency is considering two hypotheses for the so-called disease X, which has so far caused 592 cases, mainly in children, and at least 37 deaths: that it is "severe malaria in a context of malnutrition and viral infection " or a "viral infection in a context of malaria and malnutrition".

"It is an endemic area [for malaria], but other options are also being explored," Ngongo said of the disease, whose epicenter is located in the Panzi area of ​​Kwango province, about 700 kilometers from the capital, Kinshasa, although poor road conditions make the journey take up to three days and make it difficult for people to access food and basic necessities.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which sent a team of experts to the area, had already pointed out a possible link between malaria and malnutrition last week, when it began its clinical studies.

The pathogen continues to raise many questions, especially after the Africa CDC received news that an adult male suffering from the mysterious illness died from a hemorrhagic disease, very characteristic of highly deadly viruses such as Ebola and Marburg.

"The sample [from the fatal victim] was collected and sent to Kinshasa", confirmed Ngongo, who guaranteed that the first results of the analyzes being carried out in the laboratories in the Congolese capital will be known next week.

The public health institute is supporting DRCongo, a country neighboring Angola, in managing the disease, especially in terms of surveillance, with a clinical testing rate of 78.4 percent of the total number of people affected.

In the last week, 65 new infections and five deaths were detected from this mysterious disease, bringing the total number of cases to 592 - almost 70 percent of which were in people under the age of nine - and deaths to at least 37, which translates into a mortality rate of at least 6.2 percent.

The relationship between another 44 deaths and the pathogen is being investigated, he said.

Symptoms of the disease include fever, headaches, runny nose and cough, shortness of breath and anemia.

According to Congolese authorities, cases began to be reported on October 24, but the first alert only reached Kinshasa at the end of November.

On October 29, DRCongo launched its first vaccination campaign against malaria, according to the WHO, as in June it had received 693,500 doses of the R21/Matrix-M vaccine, intended to immunize children between six and 23 months against the disease. DRCongo thus became the 14th African country to adopt this vaccine, according to the WHO.

Malaria is a disease transmitted to humans by the bites of certain types of mosquitoes and kills more than 600,000 people every year, 95 percent of them in Africa, according to the health organization.

On December 11, the WHO, through a report on the disease, pointed to Cape Verde as a success story in the fight against malaria in West Africa, which is why it was certified as a country free of the disease. On the other hand, Mozambique and Angola are the Portuguese-speaking states that are among the ten countries with the most cases of malaria in 2023.

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