A mysterious illness causing fever, vomiting or haemorrhaging has been detected in Tanzania and has caused the death of 5 people. An investigation was opened and medical experts were dispatched to the northwest of the country to take samples from patients and victims.
Tanzania has asked medical experts to investigate a mysterious “communicable” disease that has already killed five people in the country, authorities said. This disease was detected in “seven people with symptoms such as fever, vomiting, bleeding and kidney failure”, detailed the Ministry of Health in a press release released late Thursday evening.
Samples taken to identify the disease
Medical experts have been dispatched to the Kagera region (north-west) bordering Uganda to investigate this “communicable” disease, said a health official, Tumaini Nagu. “Samples were taken from patients and the dead to identify the source and type of disease,” she said in a statement, calling on the population to calm down.
This case comes after an epidemic episode of the Ebola virus in Uganda, which lasted almost four months and killed 55 people. Uganda declared the epidemic over in January.
Last year, Tanzania identified an epidemic of leptospirosis, or “rat disease”, which killed three people in the Lindi region (southeast). This bacterial disease, transmitted to humans by certain mammals, spreads through water or food contaminated by the urine of infected animals.