A mystery in Tanzania. An unknown and “transmissible” disease has already killed five people in the country. Authorities on Thursday night asked for help from medical experts. 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 issued late
Medical experts have been dispatched to the Kagera region (north-west) bordering Uganda to investigate this “communicable” disease, said health official Tumaini Nagu.
Tests done on patients and dead
“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.