Earlier this month, local authorities said the disease had killed 143 people in the southwestern Kwango province in November.

A mystery disease that has killed dozens of people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in recent weeks has been identified as severe malaria, local health officials have reportedly said. Officials in the Central African country reported earlier this month that hundreds of people - mostly children under five years old - had gotten sick with an unknown flu-like illness in the southwestern Kwango province,

Democratic Republic of Congo's health ministry said on Tuesday that a previously unidentified disease circulating in the southwestern Kwango province is a severe form of malaria.