In the past five weeks, an unidentified illness has claimed the lives of over 50 people in two remote villages in northwestern Congo’s Equateur province. The outbreak, which began on January 21, has affected 419 people and led to 53 deaths.
Health officials are still working to determine the cause of the illness, as well as whether the outbreaks in the two villages, which are more than 120 miles apart, are connected. The rapid spread and high fatality rate have raised concerns, especially with many deaths occurring within hours after victims began to feel sick.
The first case was reported in the village of Boloko, where three children who ate bat meat died within 48 hours. A larger outbreak followed in the nearby village of Bomate, which has seen over 400 individuals fall ill. Health officials have not established any links between the two outbreaks, and the cause of the illness remains unknown.
Symptoms reported by the majority of patients include fever, chills, body aches, and diarrhea, which could indicate various infections. Early fears that the illness might be a hemorrhagic fever, such as Ebola, have been dispelled after testing in Kinshasa ruled out Ebola and Marburg virus.
“All these viruses are viruses that have reservoirs in the forest. And so, as long as we have these forests, we will always have a few epidemics with viruses which will mutate,” said Gabriel Nsakala, a professor of public health at Congo’s National Pedagogical University.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is investigating potential causes, including malaria, typhoid fever, food or water poisoning, and viral hemorrhagic fever. Medical experts have been deployed to the affected areas, but the remote location and limited healthcare infrastructure in the region have hindered response efforts.
Some patients died before medical teams could reach them, highlighting the urgency of improving surveillance, laboratory investigations, and patient isolation capacities.
The situation has raised concerns about the risks of zoonotic diseases, with Congo’s forests being a potential hotspot for diseases jumping from animals to humans. The WHO has noted an increase in such outbreaks across Africa, which could be linked to the consumption of wild animals.
The U.S. has been a key partner in Congo’s health efforts, though foreign aid had been temporarily frozen due to a review by the Trump administration.
