Updated Saturday, August 23rd 2014 at 09:37 GMT +3 Share this story: A fever of unidentified origin has killed 13 people in the northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo since August 11, the health minister said.
“All 13 people who have died suffered from a fever, diarrhoea, vomiting and, in a terminal stage, of vomiting a black matter,” Dr Felix Kabange Numbi said late Thursday.
So far, about 80 people who came into contact with the deceased are being monitored at their homes, he added.
But a World Health Organization (WHO) official and the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Friday it was too soon to tell whether a haemorraghic fever caused the deaths, while an epidemic of often fatal and highly contagious Ebola raged in west Africa to the north.
“Many died presenting haemorragic symptoms, but there is also serious malaria that can cause this type of symptom, or typhoid fever,” a WHO official based in Kinshasa told media, asking not to be named.
“We’re still waiting for biological confirmation to find out what kind of disease this is,” said Amandine Colin of MSF, which has teams in the affected territory of Boende, in Equateur province.
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