Unknown illness kills over 50 in Congo with hours between symptoms and death
apnews.com
apnews.com
Edit: oh, there's a hunger crisis going on there apparently, nevermind. Of its approx. 106M strong population, ~26M are experiencing acute food insecurity. [0] They're also in active conflict with Rwanda? [1]
Edit #2: apparently it is part of the cuisine also, see replies below and elsewhere in the thread. [2]
[0] https://www.wfp.org/emergencies/drc-emergency
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021–2024_Democratic_Republic_...
Simply put, you catch fewer(near 0) infections eating plants. Even more so for animals in the wild.
Quite a few will poison you, though.
I am aware that birds are also a common vector, but bats seem to be the greater risk.
> In vitro work has suggested that molecular adaptations that support the physiology of flight, a trait unique to bats among mammals, may allow bats to tolerate rapidly replicating viruses that express heightened virulence upon emergence in less tolerant hosts such as humans — thus offering a possible explanation for bat virus virulence. Bats and birds share a suite of convergent flight adaptations—both taxa are remarkably long-lived for their body size and appear to circumvent metabolic constraints on longevity through cellular pathways evolved to mitigate oxidative stress induced by flight.
(Technically this is a self-link, but it wasn't written by me, and there are no ads or the like)
I recommend the book "Spillover" about animal-borne diseases which looks at it in detail.
It’s not dissimilar to the tradition of hunting deer/rabbit/etc in the west (which has its own concerns about a disease jumping species like chronic wasting disease aka Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in humans). However, the diversity of Africa’s “bushmeat” and the economic conditions in some areas seem to increase the chances of a zoonotic disease spreading to humans.
> In recent years there have been reports of viral haemorrhagic fever (VHF) epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa where malaria is endemic. VHF and malaria have overlapping clinical presentations making differential diagnosis a challenge.
"Most VHFs and malaria initially present with similar non-specific symptoms and signs of fever, headache, joint pains and weaknesses, posing challenges in differential diagnosis"
Which could be "blood from the eyes", or it could be "fever, headache". Is there another source for specific symtoms in this outbreak you're working off?
Someone else in the discussion linked https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/africa/emerging-diseases..., which states:
> The disease affects all ages but with a majority of cases from 5 to 45 years old presenting symptoms such as fever, chills, headaches, myalgia, aches, neck pain, polyarthralgia etc. The first cases were reported on February 9.
And a WHO statement in there:
> Differential diagnosis under investigation include malaria, viral haemorrhagic fever, food or water poisoning, typhoid fever, and meningitis.
I can only go off the information I'm given. I can't help if the article is incorrect.
Yes, especially if a few dozen others with the same thing die in a short period and you're in an area where hemorrhagic fever is naturally found.
You could just as easily say they have symptoms of malaria, or an STD. The inclusion of "hemorrhagic" is either an indicator of information that wasn't expressly stated, or it's incorrect and fear mongering.
Neither tend to kill in 48 hours.
Given the location, the mortality rate, and the apparent symptoms, including hemorrhagic fever in the diagnosis possibilities is very reasonable.
FWIW: Mutations that cause the pathogen to kill the host quickly often "hurt" the pathogen because it doesn't have a chance to spread to other hosts. Hopefully this illness spreads "slowly enough" that this mutation has a poor chance of surviving.
I mean it's still better for the pathogen if it can accomplish that and keep the host alive, but that's real finesse.
For what it's worth though, vector-borne diseases in general (such as one spread by insects) are also largely exempt from the (erratic) tendency for the pathogen to evolve some moderation, as the host doesn't need to move itself and only needs to be fresh enough to attract attention from the vector species.
Losing top researchers to the effort is indicative of one of the big reasons it's tough to weaponize - you're quite likely to kill yourself and your own people in trying.
I remember as a kid in the 80s that Ebola was a disease in Africa and that people were doing fast after catching it.
It is only a few years ago that it started to spread to the US and Europe and suddenly there was a vaccine (or medication, I do not remember) which was researched and produced quickly.
The place you are born in probably drives 99% of your future.