SSM - HEALTH (CONGO UPDATE)- *Doctors sound alarm over mystery illness in Congo after 50 people die within hours of symptoms* - -A mystery disease has killed more than 50 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) just hours after symptoms began. The World Health Organization and doctors in the DRC said that the time between symptom onset and death was just 48 hours in most cases. The WHO describes the outbreak as posing 'a significant public health threat'. Officials believe the outbreak began on January 21, and 419 cases have been recorded as of Monday, including 53 deaths. ---According to the WHO's Africa office, the first outbreak started in the town of Boloko after three children reportedly ate a dead bat. They died 48 hours after developing symptoms of hemorrhagic fever, a group of illnesses characterized by fever, bleeding, headache, joint pain, and other symptoms. 'That's what's really worrying,' Serge Ngalebato, medical director of Bikoro Hospital in the DRC, told the Associated Press, referring to how rapidly the victims perished. Ebola is one of the most infamous causes of hemorrhagic fever. The news comes after doctors warned President Donald Trump's purge of the CDC and ban on communications with the WHO raised the risk of future epidemics abroad and at home.----WHO officials also warned that the number of outbreaks from diseases jumping from animals to humans - such as by eating them - has surged more than 60 percent in Africa in the last decade. Officials did not speculate what the mystery illness may be. However, after the second outbreak of the mystery disease began in the town of Bomate on February 9, officials sent samples from 13 cases for testing. All samples have been negative for Ebola and other hemorrhagic diseases like Marburg, though some samples were positive for malaria. The illness has a fatality rate of 12.3 percent, according to the WHO's Africa office, which is around 10 times higher than when Covid first began spreading. Health officials say the remote location of the outbreaks, combined with the country's 'weak health care infrastructure increase the risk of further spread, requiring immediate high-level intervention to contain the outbreak'. The outbreaks come just months after mystery 'Disease X' ravaged the DRC and killed 143 people last year. Officials later found it was likely a severe respiratory form of malaria.