Congo mystery disease “investigation deepens” as deadly, unidentified illness spreads, WHO says

The World Health Organization said Thursday that its “investigation deepens” into a mystery illness suspected of killing more than 60 people in the northern Democratic Republic of Congo over the past five weeks, warning it was continuing to spread.

The WHO said in a statement Thursday that, along with Congo health officials, it was “carrying out further investigations to determine the cause of another cluster of illness and community deaths” in the Equateur province, marking the third time this year disease surveillance teams have identified an increase in illness and deaths in the region.

“The most recent cluster occurred in the Basankusu health zone, where last week 141 additional people fell ill, with no deaths reported,” the United Nations’ global health agency said. “In the same health zone, 158 cases and 58 deaths were reported in the same health zone earlier in February. In January, Bolamba health zone reported 12 people who fell ill including 8 deaths.”

The WHO’s Africa office said earlier this week that the first outbreak was among several children who ate a bat and then died within 48 hours after experiencing hemorrhagic fever symptoms, similar to those caused by the Ebola or Marburg viruses. 

The deaths occurred in one village, Boloko, and affected people of all ages, however, teenagers and young adults seemed the most susceptible. 

Concern over front-line impact of Trump’s aid cuts

When a number of unexplained cases of illness crop up, a team of health officials and international “virus hunters” immediately go in to investigate the outbreak, determine who was the first case — “patient zero” — and work to identify, contain and treat the illness. 

But those teams have been gutted by the Trump administration’s recent U.S. foreign aid cuts, a health official who works in the region told CBS News on Thursday.

During the first Cabinet meeting of Mr. Trump’s second administration on Wednesday, non-Cabinet member Elon Musk said officials with his efficiency-oriented DOGE department had mistakenly cancelled Ebola programs as they targeted USAID. 

“We all make mistakes, but when we make mistakes, we fix it quickly, and in the case of the USAID, we accidentally canceled, very briefly, Ebola, Ebola prevention. I think we all want Ebola prevention, so we restored it and there was no interruption,” Musk said.

One U.S. health official who spoke with CBS News disputed that aid had been restored, however. They said locally trained health workers in some of the infectious disease hot zones in Africa have not been paid, and some have been dismissed entirely due to the USAID cuts.

The U.S. has long been the largest international donor to Congo’s health sector, and the funding has helped train epidemiologists to do the fieldwork that identifies and controls disease outbreaks. It’s unclear how President Trump’s funding cuts will affect the teams on the ground, but there’s widespread concern among health officials, with one virus hunter telling CBS News the region is facing “a perfect storm” for the potential spread of infectious diseases, including possible new ones.

Race to identify the mystery disease

In northern Congo, health officials have been searching for anyone with general sickness or an illness that fits a “broad case definition” that includes fever, chills, headache, nose bleeding, coughing, vomiting, diarrhea, stiff neck and muscle or joint pain

By February 19, the WHO said 943 people with such symptoms had been identified, including 52 who had died.

Test results released on February 13 showed the first cases were not Ebola or Marburg, but half of the samples did test positive for malaria. Earlier samples of suspected cases, health officials say, were “not viable,” so retesting delayed the diagnostic process. WHO officials are conducting further tests, also looking at the possibility of meningitis and testing food, water and other environmental samples from the affected region.

Officials say they’re searching for unusual patterns in cases of the mystery illness by increasing both disease surveillance and treatment for other diseases such as malaria, meningitis and typhoid fever.

A regional health team arrived in the Basankkusu health zone, which is about 110 miles from the Bolamba zone, on February 16, and it was joined six days later by a national rapid response team from the Ministry of Health and two WHO epidemiologists. They have been collecting samples of blood and urine and taking oral and nasal swabs for testing in an effort to identify the illness.

“These illnesses know no boundaries.”

The remoteness of the affected areas and Congo’s limited national health system and poor roads and phone infrastructure have all contributed to the challenges of diagnosing and containing the illness. 

About 1,000 miles away, in the far east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the M23 rebel group — which is backed by Rwanda, according to the United Nations — has captured large swaths of territory in the mineral rich region, pushing refugees into camps and adding to the burden of an already struggling health sector.

Sarah Olsen, the director of Health Research at the Wildlife Conservation Society, told CBS News on Thursday that outbreaks of Ebola, Marburg and other diseases, like the still-unidentified one killing people in northern Congo, had become the new normal, adding a call for the global community to be ready to respond. 

“The reality is there have been multiple Ebola outbreaks across Africa in recent months, and now this mystery illness in Congo is super dangerous. We just don’t know enough,” she said, adding a warning: “These illnesses know no boundaries. Now is the time to increase funding and vigilance before one of these illnesses ends up in a major city center and begins a new pandemic.”