Five deaths prompt a mystery illness investigation in Tanzania

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The Tanzanian government said a team of health experts in Tanzania is investigating a mysterious disease that claimed the lives of five people.

The illness was detected in seven people who showed symptoms of fever, vomiting, kidney failure, and bleeding in various body parts, as the Health Ministry said in a statement released on Thursday.

A rapid response team was sent to northwestern Kagera, bordering Uganda, to investigate the "communicable disease", as described by Tanzania's chief medical officer, Tumaini Nagu, in the statement. 

"Samples have been taken from the patients and the dead in an effort to identify the source and type of illness," said the officer as she urged the public to maintain calm and take the required precautions to avoid the illness.

The investigation followed an Ebola outbreak in Uganda that lasted almost four months, causing 55 deaths before the government declared an end in January. 

An outbreak of Leptospirosis or "rat fever" was discovered in Tanzania last year that killed three people in the southern-eastern region of Lindi.

The bacterial infection is commonly spread through consuming food or water contaminated by infected animal urine. 

The disease may have been causing "growing interaction" between humans and wild animals due to environmental degradation, indicated Tanzania's President, Samia Suluhu Hassan.  

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