United Nations Radio

Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) are researching a mysterious disease that has killed three people in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The United Nations health agency says that a woman, living in Zambia who traveled to South Africa and a paramedic who had cared for her as well as a nurse have died from the disease which appears to be a form of haemorrhagic fever.

WHO spokesperson Fadela Chaib says that 121 people who have had contact with the three people are being monitored and all are doing well.

"Ebola, Marburg, Lassa and the Rift Valley, four haemorrhagic fevers, have been ruled out. They are not the cause of the diseases. The CDC Atlanta and Johannesburg health authorities are working to do more analysis to try to find what happened exactly."

The CDC is the Centre of Disease control based in Atlanta in the United States.

Fadela Chaib says more samples are beign taken to better understand the disease.

This is Dianne Penn for United Nations Radio.

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