Mystery disease in Congo may be from poisoned water source, WHO says. Here's what to know.
A mystery illness that has caused dozens of deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo appears to from a "poisoning of a water source," according to the World Health Organization.
The WHO's head of emergencies Mike Ryan said Friday that local authorities now have "a very strong level of suspicion of a poisoning event related to the poisoning of a water source" in one of the villages.
The investigation is still ongoing, and Ryan noted there are "multiple agents" contributing to the deaths.
As of Feb. 19, 955 cases with at least 60 deaths have been reported across at least two villages in a northwest region of the central African nation, according to the most recent bulletin from the WHO's Africa office shared on Feb. 27.
The WHO has identified two clusters of the illness at least 40 miles apart, the Bolomba cluster and the much larger Basankusu cluster, but said they have not established a link between the two.
Here's what we know.
What are the symptoms of the mystery disease in Congo?
The symptoms of the illness include fever, chills, headaches, cough, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and stiff neck, the WHO said.
How many deaths have been linked to the mystery disease in Congo?
At least 60 deaths have been reported, according to the latest bulletin from the WHO's Africa office. In the initial outbreak, the Bolomba cluster, officials reported at least 12 cases with 8 deaths, while in the second, the Basankusu cluster, at least 943 cases with 52 deaths have been reported.
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.
Infected individuals may be dying from sepsis, Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, said on "CBS Mornings Plus" Wednesday. Sepsis occurs when an infection creates an inflammatory response in the blood.
"You're not able to maintain your blood pressures, you start to have organ failure," she explained.
Children under 5 years old make up at least 18% of cases and 15.5% of deaths, the WHO bulletin says.
What causes the mystery disease in Congo?
Ryan's remarks Friday indicate the WHO suspects a poisoned water source as a cause of the illnesses, but the investigation is ongoing.
"This is a significant set of deaths and disease caused by multiple agents in a vulnerable population," Ryan said Friday. "At the center of this, it would appear that we have some kind of poisoning event.
"We will not stop investigating until we're assured that the risk of that or that the true cause and the absolute cause of what's occurring here is fully investigated."
Testing also showed positive cases of malaria, the WHO said. The agency's bulletin on Thursday said 54.1% of 571 samples in the Basankusu cluster tested positive for the mosquito-borne disease.
Preliminary investigations had traced the Bolomba cluster to three children who became sick and died after eating a bat carcass, a previous WHO bulletin said.
This had many public health officials concerned, since bats can carry many different infectious diseases, including Ebola and coronaviruses, Gounder said Wednesday.
But, testing from both clusters has come back negative for Ebola and Marburg, a similar viral hemorrhagic fever, the WHO said.
How does the mystery disease in Congo spread?
The WHO's Africa office warned that the remote location of these outbreaks and weak health care infrastructure "increase the risk of further spread, requiring immediate high-level intervention to contain the outbreak."
Transmission depends on what the illness is confirmed to be.
Contaminated drinking water could lead to a number of illnesses, the WHO notes, including cholera, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid fever and polio — all of which have their own modes of transmission to others.
If it is malaria, Gounder said she's "not overly concerned" of the outbreaks sparking a global pandemic as it "should be fairly easy to contain."
People typically get malaria by being bitten by an infected mosquito. Less commonly, malaria can be transmitted through blood transfusion, organ transplant or the shared use of needles contaminated with blood, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Malaria can also be transmitted to an unborn infant before or during delivery.
Gounder said the outbreaks highlight another concern: the public health impact of President Trump's decision to withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization as well as cuts to federal agencies.
"Should we be worried about another pandemic? Absolutely," she said. "We have seen the emergence of infectious disease accelerate over the last couple of decades."
And pulling back staffing, such as layoffs at the CDC or dismantling USAID, will make on-the-ground investigations more difficult, she said.
While the CDC is in communication with the Ministry of Health in the DRC, Gounder said, "It certainly makes it harder when we're not part of the WHO team anymore, particularly in countries that are not very friendly, who are suspicious of the United States."
