Suspected acute haemorrhagic fever syndrome in the Republic of Congo

On 12 June 2002, the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Congo reported six suspected cases, including five deaths, of acute haemorrhagic fever syndrome in Mbomo district, near the Gabonese border (1). The first cases occurred in a group of people who had been working in a gold mining camp in a forest south of Oloba. It seems that they may have been exposed to the same source, a chimpanzee found dead in the forest.