Basankusu, Congo (AP) – authorities who investigate the death of at least 60 people in northwestern Congo, suspect that the water source is possible in one of the areas, the World Health Organization said Friday. But the agency said it is too early for a definitive conclusion.
Doctors investigate more than 1,000 diseases that have emerged since the end of January in five villages in the province of Equatur in Congo, where high malaria have complicated efforts to diagnose things and where officials have said they have not been able to confirm the main cause.
Read more: An unknown disease has killed more than 50 people in northwestern Congo. This is what we know
Who -Nood situations Chief Dr. Michael Ryan said during an online briefing on Friday that for one of the villages there is “a very strong level of suspicion of a poisoning event with regard to the poisoning of a water source.”
Ryan did not clarify whether he accidentally referred to contamination, negligence or intentional action. He also did not identify the village where the poisoning was suspected.
“We will not stop investigating until we are sure that the true cause or the absolute cause of what is taking place here has been fully investigated,” said Ryan.
Diseases were first discovered at the end of January in the village of Boloko after three children ate a bat and died within 48 hours.
Twelve cases and a total of eight deaths are registered in Boloko, without new things that have been registered since January, say civil servants, adding that almost half of the deaths took place within hours after the start of the symptoms.
The village of Bomate in Basankusu Health Zone, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from Boloko, is the most touched: 98 percent of the cases and 86 percent of the dead are registered there, health officials say.
That Thursday said that hundreds of patients tested positively in malaria, which is common in the region. In addition to common malaria symptoms such as fever and body pain, patients have also demonstrated symptoms such as chills, sweating, stiff neck, runny nose or bleeding nose, cough, vomiting and diarrhea.
The health crisis has caused anxiety among residents, some of whom have said they fled the villages not to get sick.
Experts say that access to the sick has been hindered by the remote locations of the affected villages and that several people died before medical teams could reach them.
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