According to a hospital source, ten children aged between 5 and 12 have died since Sunday. Nine people are still hospitalized.
Another tragedy has struck the central region of the country. Ten children aged 5 to 12 have died from a disease of unknown origin. Afflicted by severe “convulsions,” “diarrhea,” and “vomiting,” the victims fell into a coma before passing away.
Up to 76 people were hospitalized at the Bouaké University Hospital (CHU). The majority of these patients have since been discharged from the healthcare facility. Nine of them are still under observation, including one person in intensive care and two pregnant women.
According to medical sources, all of them had consumed a “cornmeal porridge” in Niangban, a village located about thirty kilometers south of Bouaké.
In December and January of last year, at least sixteen people from the village of Kpo-Kahankro, 20 km from Niangban, lost their lives due to a mysterious illness.
The villagers initially blamed a fetish for the mystical ailment. However, the Ministry of Health concluded that it was a clostridium contamination, a bacterium found on a fetish buried in the village.