The mysterious illness that has struck a village in central Côte d’Ivoire since December 2022 has killed twenty people, mainly children, according to a new report obtained, Thursday, February 2, by AFP from local sources.
“Until January 26 we were at twelve dead. Thursday the toll increased and we recorded twenty dead, including two adults. whereas, until then, “no adult had been affected”declared Paul Kouassi, president of a youth association of the village of Kpo-Kahankro located about twenty kilometers from the city of Bouaké, in the center of the country.
This assessment was confirmed by other inhabitants of the village. Mr. Kouassi clarified that “the age of the child victims varies between 1 and 8 years old”, stating that the children suddenly begin to stiffen up and vomit. The adults who died were women aged between 60 and 70, both of whom died in a hospital in Bouaké “after showing the same symptoms as the first deaths, namely vomiting and diarrhea”.
Analysis results
Thirty-three residents of Kpo-Kahankro were also recently rushed to the University Hospital Center (CHU) in Bouaké with similar symptoms, according to hospital sources.
Two ministers had moved to this village in December after the first deaths and on January 31 the Minister of Health Pierre Dimba went there to assess the situation, according to Mr. Kouassi.
François Kouakou Guié, a resident of the village who lost his 18-month-old baby girl, asked the authorities to find “the origin of this evil” and D’“put an end to it”. But the results of analyzes on samples taken in December from the first deceased children are slow in coming. Faced with the mystery of these deaths, the thesis of an act of witchcraft spreads in the village.