Plague erupts in the DRC

plague

Thirty-one people have died in the country due to an outbreak of what is mainly reported as the bubonic plague

An outbreak of the plague reported in late February – and which a representative of EcoHealth Alliance said surfaced between November and December 2021 – has claimed the lives of around 31 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in the Ituri Province in the northeast of the country.

The region’s Health Minister Patrick Karamura noted that there had been more than 520 cases of the plague in the region – most of them being bubonic plague, five pneumonic plague and two septicaemic plague.

EcoHealth Alliance has warned that those under the age of 17 appear to be the most at-risk group, representing 78.9 per cent of all cases.

In mid-February, new cases of Ebola were reported in the DRC – where the disease had recently been declared eradicated.