DRC: Gastroenteritis hits Kinshasa, kills 77 children

Some 77 children have died and 2,599 others are infected following an outbreak of gastroenteritis in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a health ministry official. The associate director of epidemiology at the health ministry, Dr Vital Mondonge Makuma, told IRIN on Wednesday that the disease, caused by a strain of the Escherichia coli bacterium, broke out six weeks ago.