The interval between the onset of symptoms and death has been 48 hours in the majority of cases, and “that’s what’s really worrying,” Serge Ngalebato, medical director of Bikoro Hospital, a regional monitoring center, told The Associated Press.

The latest disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo began on Jan. 21, and 419 cases have been recorded including 53 deaths.

According to the WHO’s Africa office, the first outbreak in the town of Boloko began after three children ate a bat and died within 48 hours following hemorrhagic fever symptoms.

  • HughJorgens@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    47
    ·
    24 hours ago

    If you want to stay up for a few nights, read The Hot Zone, which is about Ebola. Those bats are gonna kill us all someday, and there are so many of them!

    • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.worksOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      54
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      24 hours ago

      It’s not the bat’s fault really. If us humans would stop encroaching further into their territory and stopped warming the planet to the point of no return, we might not be having such extreme issues with zoonotic viruses we’ve never encountered before trying to kill us.

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 hours ago

        This has nothing to do with climate change that generic area of the world has always beet stock-full of nasty diseases. Even considered by African standards of unlucky geography the Kongo basin is triply fucked.

          • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            21 hours ago

            Tbf, even if we gathered all people in one giant city to stop encroaching, bugs would follow us due to our food storage/waste and blood, and bats would follow the yummy bugs and make homes in the structures we make, which like for pigeons are often good for bats too. Bats, rats, and some birds you’ll never be able to really escape by avoiding nature because they follow us or something else that does.

            • AoxoMoxoA@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              9
              ·
              19 hours ago

              I was tripping on shrooms on day, looking at the grass and noticed an ant scurring around then another and little, tiny beetle looking bugs. Then i looked out across a field and saw gnats,bees ,wasps , flys, 20 or 30 birds in the distance , a couple squirrels and thought about the worms under my feet and realized this is their world we just live in it. We are outnumbered a million to one and they don’t need us at all

              • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                18 hours ago

                And no matter how hard some try, they’ll never escape it all.

                I prefer to live as close to it as possible instead, and as in harmony with it as possible. I do like electricity and running water though lol, but I’d rather be amongst nature than my “fellow” man any day.