DR Congo: More Than 60 Deaths From An Unidentified Disease In Kwango Province

By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman

More than 60 people have already died in the Panzi health zone, located in Kwango province, over 600 kilometers from Kinshasa in the southwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), due to an as yet unidentified disease.

Apollinaire Yumba, Minister of Health for Kwango province, who provided this information, pointed out that the provincial government had already dispatched a team of health specialists to the site to take samples to be sent to the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) for in-depth examination and identification of the disease in question.

For his part, Lucien Lufutu, president of the Cadre de concertation de la société civile du Kwango, points out that the disease is spreading and has arrived in the Kitenda health zone. There, the disease has already killed three people and affected more than 70 others.

He also states that in Panzi, where the disease began, there is a general referral hospital built by the Belgians in 1960, where there is a problem of equipment and medicines.

“We are launching an SOS to save the people of Panzi and Kitenda. The central government has just sent a team to Kenge, the capital of Kwango. This team will be going to the affected areas”, explains the president of the Kwango civil society consultative group (Cadre de concertation de la société civile du Kwango).

For experts, the picture of the infection is reminiscent of influenza, but the authorities remain cautious about the origin of the disease. They point out that the population of the Panzi health zone is fragile and chronically malnourished. The area has also been hit several times by epidemics, notably of typhoid fever.