At least 89 people in South Sudan's Fangak have been killed by an undiagnosed disease, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) official.
The mysterious deaths occurred in an area recently hit by floods. Local health officials ruled out cholera as the cause.
"We decided to send a rapid reaction team to go there and do a risk assessment and research. "They will collect samples from the patients - but temporarily the number we have in our hands speaks of 89 deaths," WHO official Sila Baya told the BBC.
The floods, which were caused by heavy rains and hit the impoverished African nation earlier in the year, were among the worst on record in the country since 1962, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said in October.
"Floods have occurred at a time when people are already facing the threefold threat of conflict, Covid-19 and hunger, "the agency said.
This outbreak of sudden death comes amid growing worldwide concern over the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the discovery of which has prompted some Western nations to impose additional travel restrictions on several countries in South Africa, where it was first identified.
Source: huffingtonpost