A Rare Disease Noticed in Congo

A young street dancer in the Republic of Congo, actually an eight-year-old boy was seen collecting money for his art.

He looked to be a fantastic dancer to the music being played, but his feet were described as being enormous. His hands and head were both larger than typical, but his feet were massive. He had a lot of light-colored patches of skin and superficial lumps all over his body, which, together with his gigantism from too much growth hormone, strongly supported the diagnosis of a rare kind of neurofibromatosis. The correct diagnostic is von Recklinghausen disease.

Though infections related to skin breakdown may develop in this sort of patient, children with von Recklinghausen disease are no more susceptible to infections than children who are otherwise healthy. Because he lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where malaria mortality is among the highest in the world, this patient is at risk. As a result, malaria poses a grave threat to him..

Malaria is widespread in Sub-Saharan Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the WHO Malaria Report for 2021, the DRC is responsible for 12% of the global malaria burden, second only to Nigeria, which accounts for 27%.