"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.

Earlier this month, local authorities said the disease had killed 143 people in the southwestern Kwango province in November.

A flu-like illness that’s sickened hundreds of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo is a mix of diseases common in the region that have morphed into severe forms in a population weakened by food shortages.

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.

Authorities say the mystery flu-like illness that has killed dozens of people in southwest Congo in recent weeks might be malaria.

Haemorrhagic fever isn’t typically associated with parasite-caused malaria, meaning the outbreak may be caused by more than severe malaria, authorities said. View on euronews

The mystery disease's virus, which has remained unidentified for over three weeks now, is suspected to have been a factor alongside malaria in the outbreak.

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.