Congo’s health ministry told Reuters earlier this week that malaria was the culprit: “The mystery has finally been solved. It’s a case of severe malaria in the form of a respiratory illness,” it said Tuesday in a statement, according to Reuters. The ministry did not respond to multiple inquiries from NBC News.

Congo authorities said last week that they suspected malaria in the flu-like disease outbreak, which has killed at least 37 people and in which more than four out of five patients have tested positive for malaria. But the death of the man with hemorrhagic ...

A mystery illness found in a remote part of Congo has been officially identified as a severe form of malaria, which has sickened nearly 600 people and killed 143.