Roger Kamba the DRC’s Minister of Public Health, Hygiene and Social Security has revealed that the mysterious disease that struck through the country’s Kwango province has been detected as a flu virus.
“Regarding the situation prevailing in the Panzi health zone, in the Kwango province, laboratory results indicate that it is a flu virus as well as a situation of malnutrition and malaria, due in particular to the lack of equipment and the low coverage of care in the health zone”, according to minutes of a meeting held on Friday, December 27, 2024 in Mbuji-Mayi, capital of the Kasai Oriental province.
“The National Nutrition Program and UNICEF have intervened, treatment of all reported cases is free at the General Reference Hospital and the Nsakala Panzi Secondary Center,” adds the minutes of the meeting.
According to the National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB), the disease is a co-infection involving the Influenza AH1N1 virus, the human rhinovirus (HRV) and SARS-CoV-2, associated with malaria against a background of malnutrition.
Willy Bitwisila, the Provincial Governor specified that this disease manifests itself by symptoms such as fever, cough, generalized aches, sore throat and muscle pain.
Complications, including severe anemia as well as respiratory and metabolic disorders, can be fatal. This “mysterious” disease particularly affects young people.
According to initial data, 40% of the reported cases were children under 5 years old.
The Ministry of Health noted that the death toll at the beginning of December had risen from around thirty.
