Health officials investigating a disease outbreak in a remote region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo may not have laboratory results that could shed some light on the cause until Saturday, according to the head of the country’s National Public Health Institute.
Dieudonné Mwamba, the agency’s director general, said Thursday that it appears that the outbreak, which is receiving growing international attention, is respiratory in nature, with most cases reporting fever, coughing, and difficulty in breathing.
Mwamba answered questions about the outbreak during a weekly press conference hosted by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Regional authorities were first alerted to the outbreak on Oct. 24, and details are still vague, with a wide variety of numbers of cases and deaths having been reported. At the Africa CDC press conference, Jean Kaseya, the agency’s director general, spoke of 382 cases and 79 deaths. But in a press release issued Friday, the World Health Organization said the Congolese Ministry of Public Health had reported 394 cases and 30 deaths.
The WHO, which has deployed experts to help with the investigation, said a number of conditions are being investigated as possible causes of the outbreak, including influenza, Covid-19, malaria and measles.
The outbreak is occurring in the Panzi health region, in the province of Kwango, in the southwestern part of DRC. The area is remote, with no local capacity to test samples. Samples from the region have been transported to Kikwit, more than 300 miles away, for testing.
Mwamba and Kaseya declined to offer opinions on what might be behind the outbreak, with Kaseya saying to do so would only be spreading rumors. He suggested at this point it is not known if the illness is being caused by an infectious disease, and if it is, whether the source is bacterial or viral.
This article has been updated with information released Friday by the World Health Organization.
