Earlier this month, local authorities said the disease had killed 143 people in the southwestern Kwango province in November.
"The mystery has finally been solved. It's a case of severe malaria in the form of a respiratory illness... and weakened by malnutrition," the health ministry said in a statement.
It also said that 592 cases had been reported since October with a fatality rate of 6.2%.
Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world's largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day.
Go to: https://www.reuters.com/
