An "unknown disease" continues to spread in the Democratic Republic of Congo, killing at least 60 people and infecting 1,000 others since it first broke out in January, reports CBS News. Even more concerning, the majority of deaths have taken only 48 hours from when symptoms first appeared.
The outbreak — which seems to have hit two separate villages, although the two clusters haven't yet been proven to be related — started in January after three children ate a bat, reports Time. Two days later they died.
Although tests have so far ruled out Ebola, the symptoms of this unidentified disease are similar to those of Ebola and Marburg, which include fever, headache, chills, a stiff neck, muscle aches, a runny or bleeding nose, coughing, vomiting, and diarrhea, according to the World Health Organization.
"These are symptoms you could see with any number of infectious diseases," said CBS medical reporter Dr. Céline Gounder. "Ebola, Marburg, dengue and yellow fever have been ruled out, but there are a lot of other diseases — like malaria, typhoid, and meningitis — which could cause some of these symptoms."
From CBS:
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.
The interval between the onset of symptoms and death has been just 48 hours in the majority of cases, and "that's what's really worrying," Serge Ngalebato, medical director of Bikoro Hospital, a regional monitoring center, told The Associated Press on Monday.
Children under 5 years old make up at least 18% of cases and 15.5% of deaths, the WHO bulletin says.
While preliminary investigations linked the first outbreak to children who had eaten a bat carcass, the exact cause of the outbreaks remains unknown, the WHO's Africa office said. Additionally, because it's unknown if the outbreaks are linked, there could be separate causes.
In other related health news, the Trump-Musk administration ordered the CDC to "immediately" cut ties with the World Health Organization on Jan 26 — right as these outbreaks were flaring up. Why the United States would sever communications with world experts on global diseases is about as much a mystery as the mystery disease itself.
Previously: Dr. Deborah Birx: "Our agencies are making the same mistakes they made with COVID"
