By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-12-05 22:46:57 | Updated at 2024-12-24 12:49:20
2 weeks ago
The CDC is 'standing ready' amid an outbreak of a mystery disease in Africa.
There are rising concerns about the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where dozens of people have died from a flu-like respiratory illness.
A source at the CDC told DailyMail.com they were 'aware' of the outbreak and were in contact with health officials there 'and stand ready to provide additional support if needed'.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has deployed a team to the southwestern province Kwango where the outbreak is being reported to take samples and test for the virus.
DRC health minister Roger Kamba said his country was currently on 'maximum alert' as they try to work out what's behind the 'epidemic' that has killed up to 143 people.
Most patients were children in their late teens, officials said, who suffered from symptoms including a fever, headache, cough and shortness of breath.
The symptoms suggest a respiratory virus — and, already, parallels are being drawn to the early days of the Covid pandemic.
Hong Kong became the first country to bring in health checks for arrivals from the DRC and Africa today, in an echo of measures taken to limit the spread of Covid.
Officials are 'aware' of a mysterious outbreak in the Congo. The above is a stock image and shows a healthcare worker caring for an individual in Tehran, Iran, in March 2020 — at the start of the Covid pandemic
A source at CDC told DailyMail.com in a statement: 'The CDC is aware of reports of an illness in southwest DRC.
'US Government staff, including those from US CDC's country office in Kinshasa [the DRC's capital], are in contact with the DRC's ministry of health and stand ready to provide additional support if needed.'
It was not clear how concerned the CDC was over the outbreak, or whether the agency plans to alert the nation's doctors.
Tests on patients are currently being carried out in the DRC, with officials saying they expect to have the results before the end of the week.
There are no direct flights between the US and Kinshasa, according to flight monitoring websites, although passengers can still arrive via connecting flights.
This may include catching connecting flights in Johannesburg, South Africa, or in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Officials say it is taking days to establish the illness behind the outbreak because the cases are in a remote part of the country, which took two days for the health team to reach.
It is not clear what disease could be causing the outbreak at this point, but officials say it could be a respiratory disease.
Experts speaking to DailyMail.com said the symptoms were 'non-specific' and they needed more information.
Dr Peter Hotez, pictured above, was speaking on MSNBC warning of the dangers posed by
Dr Annie Rimoin, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has worked in Congo since 2002, told NBC News that diagnosing the illnesses may be complicated by underlying health issues in the local population, including malaria and malnutrition.
'I think it's really important to be aware of what's happening, and I think it's also really important not to panic until we have more information,' she said.
'It could be anything,' she added. 'It could be influenza, it could be Ebola, it could be measles. At this point, we really just don’t know.'
Dr Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious diseases expert and associate professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said that at this stage it was difficult to tell what was causing the outbreak because only general symptoms had been reported.
'We need more information,' she told DailyMail.com, 'the information that has been provided at present speaks of a number of diseases'.
Asked whether it could be monkeypox or Ebola, she said: 'In what they are reporting, we have not seen any reports of skin rash or skin abnormality — which would go with mpox.
'Typically, with viral hemorrhagic fever [like Ebola] you would hear reports of coughing or throwing up blood, and that has not been reported either.'
She added: 'The reports are concerning, but we need more data and more information about the symptoms they are seeing on the ground.'
The above map shows the DRC, and highlights the province of Kwango where the outbreak has been recorded
The above image shows Roger Kamba, who heads up the DRC's department of health
Officials initially suggested that 143 people had died from the mystery disease, although authorities appear to have reduced that number to 71 deaths.
These include 27 people who died in the hospital and 44 people who died in the community.
Of the people who died in hospital, 10 died due to a lack of blood transfusions and 17 died as a result of respiratory problems — the health minister said.
Most of the cases were children in their late teens, aged between 15 and 18 years old according to the BBC.
Dr Hotez, a leading supporter of lockdowns and mask mandates during the Covid pandemic, warned there were at least nine infectious diseases currently spreading in the US that could cause another pandemic — in a plea to the Trump administration not to cut disease research funding.
Scientists are currently warning over a surge in bird flu cases in animals that are spilling into humans, as well as a resurgence in measles and whooping cough linked to falling vaccination rates.
In an interview with MSNBC news, Dr Hotez said: 'Here's the reason why we need to care about this stuff. We have some big-picture stuff coming down the pipe.
'All that's going to come crashing down on January 21 on the Trump administration. We need a really really good team to be able to handle this.'
