- Published Friday, August 22, 2014 2:31 p.m.
Seventy-five people have died of an unidentified disease that is a
hemorrhagic fever "of unknown origin" in Equateur province (north-west
of the Democratic Republic of Congo), said Friday the UN radio Okapi
citing provincial authorities.
This estimate is much higher than the one given Thursday by the Congolese Minister of Health, Dr. Felix Kabange Numbi.
Radio Okapi, a UN-sponsored, was reported Thursday in the death of 65 people in about four weeks in the health area Djera in the areas of health Wetsikengo, Lokalia Wafanya and in the territory of Boende a town about 300 km east of Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur province.
This "unknown disease" made ten more deaths, said Friday the radio.
A spokesman at the headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Gregory Härtl has about him reported "cases of gastroenteritis."
According to Mr Numbi, some 80 people who were in contact with the deceased patients are followed at home.
The appearance of this disease comes amid an outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever unprecedented since the emergence of the virus in 1976 - when two simultaneous outbreaks in Sudan and the DRC (then Zaire) - killed at least 1,350 dead on 2.473 cases in four countries in West Africa (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and most recently Nigeria).
Too early to talk about deadly hemorrhagic fever, according to WHO and MSF
It is too early to say that it is a hemorrhagic fever that has killed at least thirteen - or 75, according to UN radio Okapi - people in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) warned Friday WHO and Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
"Many died with bleeding symptoms, but it also has severe malaria who can also give these symptoms, or typhoid fever," said an official of the World Health Organization (WHO) based in Kinshasa under the condition of anonymity told AFP.
"We are still waiting biological confirmations to determine what kind of disease it is," he told AFP Amandine Colin, communications officer for MSF in Kinshasa, whose teams are present in the affected area, Boende territory of the Province of Ecuador (northwest).
The Congolese Minister of Health, Dr. Felix Kabange Numbi said Thursday AFP that "13 people have died since August 11 hemorrhagic fever of unknown origin," stressing that it presented "in terminally ill, vomiting of blackish material. "
Samples have been taken and should be treated at the National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB) and the laboratory in Franceville, Gabon, to determine the exact origin of the disease. "We should have the results in seven days," the minister said.
Friday, the death toll remained "unchanged", said Dr. Kabange Numbi told AFP, while the UN radio Okapi reported a record 75 deaths.
Lokolia and Watsikengo, distant thirty miles, are the epicenters of the disease. The authorities have created commissions to the patient monitoring, hygiene, sanitation and safe burials. http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2F7sur7.cd%2Findex.php%2F8-infos%2F8473-rdc-le-bilan-de-la-maladie-inconnue-s-alourdit-a-75-morts%23.U_dU8rH3dac
Radio Okapi, a UN-sponsored, was reported Thursday in the death of 65 people in about four weeks in the health area Djera in the areas of health Wetsikengo, Lokalia Wafanya and in the territory of Boende a town about 300 km east of Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur province.
This "unknown disease" made ten more deaths, said Friday the radio.
A spokesman at the headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Gregory Härtl has about him reported "cases of gastroenteritis."
According to Mr Numbi, some 80 people who were in contact with the deceased patients are followed at home.
The appearance of this disease comes amid an outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever unprecedented since the emergence of the virus in 1976 - when two simultaneous outbreaks in Sudan and the DRC (then Zaire) - killed at least 1,350 dead on 2.473 cases in four countries in West Africa (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and most recently Nigeria).
Too early to talk about deadly hemorrhagic fever, according to WHO and MSF
It is too early to say that it is a hemorrhagic fever that has killed at least thirteen - or 75, according to UN radio Okapi - people in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) warned Friday WHO and Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
"Many died with bleeding symptoms, but it also has severe malaria who can also give these symptoms, or typhoid fever," said an official of the World Health Organization (WHO) based in Kinshasa under the condition of anonymity told AFP.
"We are still waiting biological confirmations to determine what kind of disease it is," he told AFP Amandine Colin, communications officer for MSF in Kinshasa, whose teams are present in the affected area, Boende territory of the Province of Ecuador (northwest).
The Congolese Minister of Health, Dr. Felix Kabange Numbi said Thursday AFP that "13 people have died since August 11 hemorrhagic fever of unknown origin," stressing that it presented "in terminally ill, vomiting of blackish material. "
Samples have been taken and should be treated at the National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB) and the laboratory in Franceville, Gabon, to determine the exact origin of the disease. "We should have the results in seven days," the minister said.
Friday, the death toll remained "unchanged", said Dr. Kabange Numbi told AFP, while the UN radio Okapi reported a record 75 deaths.
Lokolia and Watsikengo, distant thirty miles, are the epicenters of the disease. The authorities have created commissions to the patient monitoring, hygiene, sanitation and safe burials. http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2F7sur7.cd%2Findex.php%2F8-infos%2F8473-rdc-le-bilan-de-la-maladie-inconnue-s-alourdit-a-75-morts%23.U_dU8rH3dac
