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.
Since November, a new armed conflict has erupted in North Kivu province, on the border between Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC, between the armed group M23 - March 23 Movement - and the Rwandan army on the one hand, and the Congolese army supported by local militias on the other, leaving dozens dead and hundreds wounded.
But there will be another Disease X, or a Disease Y or a Disease Z.’.
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.
This news comes after the DRC also battled with a Disease X last year, which killed 143 people.
