HQ Team
February 26, 2025: A mystery illness sweeping over Congo has killed 53 people and infected 400 more, with an initial probe tracking the outbreak to three children who ate bats before they died, according to the WHO.
In the country’s northwestern Équateur Province, “two clusters of cases and deaths from an unknown disease have emerged, resulting in hundreds of cases and dozens of deaths,” according to a WHO bulletin.
“The outbreak, which has seen cases rise rapidly within days, poses a significant public health threat. The exact cause remains unknown, with Ebola and Marburg already ruled out, raising concerns about a severe infectious or toxic agent.”
On February 13, 2025, health authorities in Congo reported a new cluster of cases and deaths in Bomate Village of the Équateur Province.
It was the second cluster of cases and deaths from an unknown disease in the province in less than a month. The latest outbreak in Bomate Village was initially reported to provincial health authorities on February 9, 2025.
Fever, chills
Initial reports indicated 32 cases with 20 community deaths, occurred between January 30 and February 9, 2025. As of February 15, 2025, ongoing investigations and surveillance activities had identified 419 cases with 45 deaths, according to a weekly bulletin published by the WHO’s Africa office.
By January 27, 2025, a total of 12 cases with 8 deaths, had been reported in nearby Boloko Village. That took the total death toll in the outbreak to 53 people from the two health zones.
Primary clinical manifestations include fever, chills, headache, myalgia, body aches, sweating, rhinorrhea, neck stiffness, cough, vomiting, diarrhoea, and abdominal cramps.
“Close to half of the deaths occurred within 48 hours of symptom onset,” according to the bulletin.
Specimens from 13 cases, including 12 blood samples from active cases and one swab from a deceased individual, were collected and sent to the National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB) in the capital Kinshasa for analysis on February 11, 2025.
Negative for Ebola, Marburg
“Test results released on February 13, 2025, showed that all samples were negative for Ebola and Marburg viruses by polymerase chain reaction.”
Differential diagnoses under investigation include malaria, viral haemorrhagic fever, food or water poisoning, typhoid fever, and meningitis.
The outbreak follows a cluster of cases and deaths reported to Équateur provincial health authorities on January 21, 2025, from Boloko Village.
Preliminary investigations traced the outbreak’s origin to three community deaths among children under five years old in the village. “Reports indicate that the children had consumed a bat carcass before the onset of signs and symptoms.”
No epidemiological links have been established between the cases in the two affected health zones. “Metagenomic sequencing and additional investigations are ongoing to determine the cause of illness and deaths in the two health zones.”
Internal conflict
In 2024, an unknown flulike illness infected hundreds of people in the southwestern part of Congo, and later it was found to be a likely respiratory infection complicated by malaria.
An internal conflict has worsened the humanitarian crisis in Congo. In the eastern part of the country, the escalating armed conflict between the military and M23 rebels has led to mass displacement, violence, and humanitarian collapse.
The capture of two provinces by rebels has worsened insecurity, while looting, attacks on aid workers, and blocked supply routes have severely disrupted humanitarian operations.
Morgues overcrowded
Electricity outages in the Goma province are crippling hospitals and water supplies, increasing the risk of cholera outbreaks, malnutrition, and disease transmission.
Medical facilities are overwhelmed, having treated over 4 260 injured people, while the Red Cross has buried 2,000 bodies, and morgues remain overcrowded, according to the bulletin.
Remote locations and weak healthcare infrastructure increase the risk of further spread of the unknown illness, “requiring immediate high-level intervention to contain the outbreak.”
