The UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, warned on Tuesday that a resurgence of Bubonic plague in Ituri province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is putting young lives at risk.

A new research supported by the agency revealed children are especially vulnerable as poverty, conflict and displacement contribute to the return of the illness for the first time in more than a decade.  

The research focused on three health zones in Ituri, where more than 490 cases were recorded between 2020 and 2021, with 20 fatalities. 

Some 578 cases, and 44 plague-related deaths, occurred throughout the entire province during the same period. 

 Izzy Scott Moncrieff, UNICEF Social Sciences Analytics Cell (CASS) Field Supervisor said “the really worrying thing here is that we’ve got plague reported in areas which had not seen a case for more than 15 years, and many more cases in areas where they had very few or none previously”.

She added that there are grave consequences for children because they are more exposed to the risk factors of plague.

Abdullahi Hassan reports.