CBS NEWS – A mystery illness has caused at least 60 deaths amid multiple outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo, doctors say.
As of Feb. 19, 955 cases have been reported across at least two villages in a northwest region of the central African nation, according to the most recent bulletin from the World Health Organization’s Africa office shared on Feb. 27.
Preliminary investigations traced the first outbreak to three children who became sick and died after eating a bat carcass, a previous bulletin said.
“What has many public health officials concerned is hearing that some of these kids who died consumed a bat carcass,” Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, said on “CBS Mornings” Wednesday.
Bats can carry many different infectious diseases, including Ebola and coronaviruses, Gounder said.
But a number of questions remain about the outbreaks. Here’s what we know.
What are the symptoms of the mystery disease?
The symptoms of the patients include fever, chills, headaches, cough, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and stiff neck, the WHO said.
“These are symptoms you could see with any number of infectious diseases,” Gounder said. “What had some folks concerned about Ebola and related infections was that they were seeing blood in the vomit, in the stool, bloody noses. That can be a sign of that, but you can also see that with a condition like malaria.”
How many deaths have been linked to the mystery disease in Congo?
60 deaths have been reported, the bulletin from the WHO’s Africa office says. The initial outbreak, the Bolomba cluster, reported at least 12 cases and 8 deaths, while the second, the Basankusu cluster, reported at least 943 cases and 52 deaths.
Gounder, who is an infectious disease expert, said it is unclear if the outbreaks are related …
