Burundi: An unidentified disease, anticipated as a virus that causes nosebleed and reportedly kills the infected person within 24 hours, has claimed three lives in the north-eastern region of Burundi in West Africa.
The symptoms appear to point towards some sort of viral haemorrhagic fever, which damages the walls of tiny blood vessels making them leak, such as Marburg and Ebola. However, the health minister has already ruled out both the illnesses, a local report said.
The governor and the provincial physician in Kirundo are expecting the outcomes of samples collected by experts from the INSP (National Institute of Public Health) before making a decision.
The deceased individuals are reportedly from the Gitobe community. They both lived near Migwa hill in Baziro region. All the cases reported are from here, authorities reported.
“The symptoms include abdominal pain, nasal bleeding that worsens after death, acute headaches, high fever, vomiting, and dizziness,” said on-site observers.
A nurse who spoke with SOS Media Burundi said that this disease kills victims very fast.
“The illness kills very fast. The infected individual passes away within 24 hours,” she said.
The terrified nurse from the Migwa health centre in the Gashoho health district of Muyinga province, where patients were sent and two women perished there, exclaimed, “It’s terrible, we’re all waiting for death.
The deaths have caused a scare of the outbreak in the town so much so that the residents in Migwa reportedly blocked the entrances when the people of Baziro wanted to transport the third person, local platforms reported.
“As of now, the people living the two towns have been asked to stay home quarantined in order to contain,” she said.
