Infectious disease experts say the mysterious outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo poses little risk to , but are urging health authorities to remain alert.
More than 50 people have died from the unidentified illness, with many dropping dead just hours after symptoms first appeared.
The World Health Organisation has labelled the outbreak a ‘significant public health threat’.
Officials believe the outbreak began on January 21, and 419 cases have been recorded as of Monday, including 53 deaths.
One area has an ‘exceptionally high fatality rate’ with two thirds of people who contracted the mystery disease passing away.
According to WHO’s Africa office, the outbreak is believed to have started in the town of Boloko, where three children reportedly ate a dead bat.
They died 48 hours after developing symptoms of hemorrhagic fever, a group of illnesses characterised by fever, bleeding, headache, joint pain, and other symptoms.
Professor of Epidemiology at Deakin University Catherine Bennett told Daily Mail she wasn’t too worried about the illness spreading despite experts not knowing what it is.
‘I’m not nervous. It’s about being vigilant,’ Professor Bennett said.
She said scientists should know what the disease was soon.
‘I would expect we’d hear something in the next few days, particularly if it’s something that is an existing known pathogen,’ she said.
‘It’s a complex picture but they’re ruling things out. Sometimes it might be something that’s familiar but different enough where the current tests don’t work on it.
‘They’re also looking at food or water poisoning. It might not be infectious, it might be an environmental source.’
However Professor Bennett warned that all it would take was for one asymptomatic person to fly overseas for the infection to spread into another country or continent.
‘You can be in another country in hours and that might be someone who’s unfortunately caught something – not symptomatic yet – on a plane and that’s what we’re worried about in terms of spread,’ she said.
Professor Bennett said testing results in the coming days would be crucial in deciding a strategy for dealing with the outbreak.
‘If it is a person-to-person disease you have to be in there early or it gets away from you and that’s what Covid reminded us about,’ she said.
‘What will be important is finding out how long people go from exposure to showing symptoms.
‘Are they infectious before then have symptoms, or only after?’
Unlike Covid, when people travelled around spreading the virus without knowing it, this mystery illness was killing people before they had the chance to get very far.
She said the disease appears to be similar to Ebola in that its high fatality rate makes it somewhat easier to contain.
Infectious diseases physician and microbiologist Peter Collignon told Daily Mail there was a low probably the disease would make it to .
‘You can’t ignore this but this has been happening for decades in Africa and we never knew about it,’ he said.
‘Now, because communications are so good, you get a disproportionate view of your own risk. It’s a problem, but there’s a low probability it will transmit all around the world.
‘They should be able to work out what it is in the next few days because they’ve got enough material.’
There’s a theory that the mystery illness could be linked to malaria after some people who were tested following their deaths returned positive samples for the disease.
The fact that most people died so soon after experiencing symptoms was seen as a positive in terms of limiting the disease’s spread.
WHO said two health zones had recorded outbreaks – the Bolomba and Basankusu areas.
In the Basankusu health zone, there had been 419 cases recorded with 45 deaths.
In the Bolomba health zone there had been 12 cases and eight deaths.
Health officials say the remote location of the outbreaks, combined with the country’s ‘weak health care infrastructure increases the risk of further spread, requiring immediate high-level intervention to contain the outbreak’.