According to African health authorities, the mystery of the unknown disease that has caused hundreds of victims in a region of Congo seems to have been solved. According to the country's Ministry of Health, it is a serious form of malaria associated with malnutrition. The World Health Organization (WHO) is more cautious, specifying that the causes of the disease have not yet been definitively ascertained.

In Italy, meanwhile, after the first two suspected cases in Tuscany and Calabria, the death of a person from Treviso was recorded today after returning from a trip to Kinshasa and with symptoms similar to Congo disease: this is the entrepreneur Andrea Poloni. From the first information collected by Aulss2 Veneto, the Ministry of Health and the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) explained in a joint note, "the patient had no contact with health personnel nor had he ever been to the hospital from the onset of symptoms until their worsening. It does not appear that he had followed any pharmacological therapy. Investigations are underway by the Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute for Infectious Diseases and the ISS".

The Veneto Region, as per protocol, it is specified, "has already activated the necessary precautionary health surveillance measures". The Ministry and ISS also recall that "the previous cases of patients from Congo (Kinshasa region), one hospitalized at the Lucca hospital and the other at the Cosenza hospital, have recovered and been discharged".

For its part, the Veneto Region has announced that the suspected case of death from fever with hemorrhage concerns Andrea Poloni, 55 years old, recently returned from a trip to Congo, and was communicated by the Public Health Hygiene Service of the Azienda Ulss 2 Marca trevigiana. Home isolation has been ordered for the only known contact.

Meanwhile, the Congolese Ministry of Health has announced that "the mystery has finally been solved": the previously unidentified disease circulating in the Panzi region is "a case of severe malaria, in the form of a respiratory disease, with weakening from malnutrition".

Local authorities said the disease killed 143 people in the southwestern province of Kwango in November and 592 cases have been recorded since October, with a fatality rate of 6.2%.

(Online Union)

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