Congo’s health ministry told Reuters 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.

A man in western Congo has died with hemorrhagic fever symptoms. Health authorities say that has led them to suspect that a still-unidentified virus may be involved alongside malaria in a mysterious outbreak that has killed dozens of people.

"The mystery has finally been solved," Congo's health ministry says, after an unidentified disease outbreak started killing mainly women and children in a remote region.