Kaseya says driving from the capital Kinshasa to the affected district takes three days of juggling the poor road network reporting they had received reports that samples earlier collected were poorly preserved and therefore cannot be used.
Identifying
the germ that has so far caused 32 deaths in health facilities and 44 other
deaths in the community in Panzi, a rural district in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo
could take longer, the Africa Center for Disease Control (CDC) has said.
While
addressing the weekly press conference, Dr Jean Kaseya the Africa CDC Director General
said they had not yet found clear information about the cause of the strange
disease that is yet to be named saying that teams sent out to collect samples
could return next week.
Kaseya says
driving from the capital Kinshasa to the affected district takes three days of
juggling the poor road network reporting they had received reports that samples
earlier collected were poorly preserved and therefore cannot be used.
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Africa CDC
reports that 527 people were affected by the disease
which is being called Disease X by Thursday whereby forty-two percent are
children under the age of five. These
statistics are worrisome according to Kaseya as one hundred and forty-seven
were recorded just this week.
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Earlier this
week, Prof. Placide Mbala a virologist
and an Associate Professor at the University of Kinshasa's School of Medicine indicated that samples they had collected were of poor quality as some were
showing signs that the red blood cells had been destructed, what is scientifically
referred to as hemolysis.
Mbala also
reported that they had no swabs to use to conduct nasopharyngeal tests on
patients who had presented with symptoms, which is why they were yet to
identify the exact pathogen causing sickness.
According to
the World Health Organisation, the undiagnosed disease presents with symptoms
of fever, headache, cough, runny nose and body ache among others, and people started falling sick two months ago.
The organization
further says all the severe cases recorded were also severely malnourished.
Like Africa
CDC, WHO announced early this week that they had deployed teams to investigate
the disease but no more information has since been shared.
But, the organization
noted in a statement that given the clinical presentation and symptoms
reported, and several associated deaths, acute pneumonia, influenza, COVID-19,
measles and malaria are being considered as potential causal factors with
malnutrition as a contributing factor.
“Malaria is
a common disease in this area, and it may be causing or contributing to the
cases. Laboratory tests are underway to determine the exact cause. At this
stage, it is also possible that more than one disease is contributing to the
cases and deaths”, WHO notes.
Information
from DRC’s Ministry of Health shows that 96% of all cases experienced a fever
and a running nose is the least seen symptom appearing in 57.8% of those
affected. The main symptoms associated with death include difficulty in
breathing, anaemia, and signs of acute malnutrition.
Based on the
current context of the affected area and the broad presentation of symptoms,
experts say several suspected diseases need to be ruled out through further
investigations and laboratory testing. These include but are not limited to
measles, influenza, acute pneumonia (respiratory tract infection), COVID-19,
and malaria.
