A mysterious disease has reportedly claimed the lives of five people in Tanzania.
This was confirmed in a statement issued late Thursday, March 16, 2023, by the Eastern African country’s health ministry.
The illness was detected in “a total of seven people (with) symptoms including fever, vomiting, bleeding in various body parts, and kidney failure.”
The government has sent a rapid response team to the northwestern region of Kagera which borders Uganda to investigate the “communicable disease”, Tanzania’s chief medical officer Tumaini Nagu said in the statement.
“Samples have been taken from the patients and the dead in an effort to identify the source and type of illness,” she said, urging the public to remain calm but take precautions to avoid contagion.
The probe follows an Ebola outbreak in Uganda, that lasted nearly four months and claimed the lives of 55 people before the government in January declared an end to it.
Last year, Tanzania identified an outbreak of leptospirosis, or “rat fever” which killed three people in the southeastern region of Lindi.
The bacterial infection is commonly spread through consuming water or food contaminated by infected animal urine.
(AFP)