The World Health Organization (WHO) says it has sent a rapid response team to South Sudan following the deaths of almost 100 people from a yet-to-be-identified disease. Sheila Baya, a spokesperson for the WHO, told the BBC on Dec. 14 that the illness has killed at least 89 people in South Sudan’s Jonglei state. “We decided to send a rapid response team to go and do risk assessment and investigation; that is when they will be able to collect samples from the sick people … but, provisionally, the figure that we got was that there were 89 deaths,” Baya said. However, the WHO’s response has been complicated by recent severe weather and flooding in Fangak, the epicenter of the mysterious new disease, Baya said. A local South Sudanese health official told Baya that initial samples collected in the region returned negative tests for cholera, a bacterial disease that’s often associated with flooding. …
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