Hanoi urgently responds to strange disease from Congo, has the name of the specimen been identified?

The recorded symptoms included high fever, cough, headache, fatigue and anemia, leading experts to suspect that this was not a single disease but a combination of many factors.

On December 12, the Department of Preventive Medicine (Ministry of Health) issued Official Dispatch No. 1412/BC-DP, promptly reporting on cases of unknown causes of illness in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Based on information recorded from the event-based surveillance system, the Department of Preventive Medicine directed and organized the monitoring of the epidemic situation in Congo.

According to the Hanoi Center for Disease Control, in the coming time, this unit will continue to strengthen medical quarantine work at Noi Bai International Airport, closely monitor the epidemic situation in the world, in Vietnam and Hanoi to promptly detect infected/suspected cases to implement appropriate and timely epidemic prevention plans.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), from October 24 to December 5, in the Panzi health area, Kwango province, Congo, 416 cases of unknown cause were recorded, including 31 deaths; the mortality rate was 7.6%.

Symptoms reported include fever, headache, cough, runny nose and muscle pain. Cases are predominantly in children (53% of cases and 54.8% of deaths are under 5 years old) and all severe cases are severely malnourished.

The Panzi area is a rural area in the remote Kwango Province, approximately 700 km (approximately 48 hours by road) from the capital Kinshasa. Health conditions in the area are very poor; poor health facilities lack medicines, equipment, and medical supplies, vaccination rates are low, and diagnostic and case management capabilities are very limited.

There has been a food shortage in the area in recent months and it is also the rainy season so access to medical services is difficult (affecting the identification of the causative agent).

Malaria is endemic in the region and is believed to be linked to the cases, with limited malaria control measures. Several countries in Asia and Southeast Asia also consider the risk of introduction from the Congo to be low, given the low number of visitors from the region and the lack of direct flights from the country.

The Department of Preventive Medicine will continue to monitor and closely follow the developments of the epidemic situation; proactively conduct event-based surveillance with information about the epidemic in DRC; coordinate with WHO and IHR focal points of countries to update and share information about the epidemic.

In case of new developments, the Department of Preventive Medicine (Ministry of Health) will coordinate with WHO, USCDC and relevant units to assess the risk to propose appropriate responses, including strengthening medical quarantine work.

However, the Congolese Ministry of Health recently said that the mysterious disease spreading in Panzi, which has killed at least 143 people, is a severe form of malaria. "The mystery has finally been solved. This is a case of severe malaria in the form of a respiratory disease," the Congolese Ministry of Health said on December 17. Two years ago, Panzi experienced a typhoid fever epidemic. The area also has high rates of malnutrition and low vaccination rates, leaving children vulnerable to a variety of diseases.

Some samples have been sent to the WHO laboratory in Kinshasa, about a 48-hour drive from Panzi. More samples are on the way, the WHO said. WHO has provided anti-malarial drugs to hospitals and health centers, said Apollinaire Yumba, director of the Panzi Health Authority.

According to WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, 10 initial samples from patients in Congo tested positive for malaria. However, he did not rule out the possibility that they had multiple illnesses at the same time.

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