Five dead from mysterious infectious disease in Tanzania

The Tanzanian government has tasked a team of health experts with investigating a mysterious infectious disease following the deaths of five people. The apparently contagious disease has been diagnosed in a total of seven people, the Ministry of Health of the East African country reported on Thursday evening. They suffered from fever, vomiting, bleeding from different parts of the body and kidney failure.

The crisis team was deployed to the northwestern region of Kagera, which borders Uganda. Samples were taken from those affected “to identify the source and nature of their illness,” said Tanzania’s chief physician Tumaini Nagu. She called on the public to remain calm and take precautions to avoid contamination.

The illnesses in Tanzania were preceded by an Ebola outbreak in Uganda that lasted nearly four months and killed 55 people. The Ugandan government announced the end of the epidemic in January.

An outbreak of leptospirosis, also known as “rat fever”, was reported in Tanzania last year, killing three people in the southeastern Lindi region. The bacterial infectious disease is usually transmitted through consumption of water or food contaminated with the urine of infected animals.

Tanzanian head of state Samia Suluhu Hassan said the leptospirosis outbreak may have been due to “increasing interaction” between humans and wild animals. This development, in turn, is due to continued environmental degradation. (saw/sda/afp)