Mystery disease kills more than 50 people in a matter of hours

An unknown disease that poses a ‘significant public health threat’ has already killed more than 50 people. The disease started on January 21 in the village of Boloko, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), after three children ate a dead bat, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Africa office.

All three had bled from their nose and had vomited blood before they died. Other victims have experienced fever, vomiting, bleeding, headache and joint pain. The children, aged under five, were from the same village, where four more children have died since January. Soon the mystery disease was in the nearby village of Danda before spreading even further.

So far 419 cases have been confirmed and 53 people have died in the Équateur Province, a northwestern region of rainforests and farmland almost the size of England. Bats are known to harbour diseases like Marburg and Ebola viruses. Ebola killed 2,299 people in eastern DRC between 2018 and 2020, while Marburg has killed at least 56 people in neighbouring countries in the last two years.

But testing has ruled both of these out, and WHO officials have not speculated on what may be behind the outbreak. Particularly alarming is the speed at which this mystery disease is killing its victims – within just 48 hours of developing symptoms. ‘That’s what’s really worrying’, Serge Ngalebato, medical director of Bikoro Hospital in the DRC, said.

However a sliver of light is that the mystery disease appears to have a lower death rate – around 12% – than either Ebola or Marburg. There’s also concern about the rise of diseases jumping from animals to humans where people eat wild animals. Outbreaks like these have risen dramatically by 60% over the last decade, the WHO said.

Health officials also warned the DRC’s ‘weak health care infrastructure increases the risk of further spread, requiring immediate high-level intervention to contain the outbreak’. While WHO officials have not speculated on what this disease could be, 18 cases were sent to labs for testing following a second outbreak.

These tested negative for other hemorrhagic diseases like Ebola but some cases tested positive for malaria. This news comes after the DRC also battled with a Disease X last year, which killed 143 people. Officials found it was likely acute respiratory infections complicated by malaria.

Disease X was a term coined by the UN agency in 2018 to describe the unknown, hypothetical pathogen that could cause the next pandemic. WHO boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said no one can predict where or when the next Disease X will emerge, but its existence ‘is a matter of when, not if.

Disease X ‘may be caused by an influenza virus, or a new coronavirus, or it may be caused by a new pathogen we don’t even know about yet’, he added. ‘Covid-19 was a Disease X – a new pathogen causing a new disease. But there will be another Disease X, or a Disease Y or a Disease Z.’.

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