In the rainforest-covered reaches of Tshopo province in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, an unfounded story about a mysterious illness claiming to cause men’s genitals to wither moved quickly from whispered conversations to viral video testimonials late last year. Within days the rumours had spread across villages and online, stoking fear and hostility that culminated in fatal attacks on health personnel who were trying to conduct routine vaccination surveys.
The outbreak of violence reached its peak in October, when a team of health workers visiting villages in the Isangi area were met with suspicion and then lethal mob attacks. Four members of the team were killed, according to local officials and a survivor. The WHO-led Africa Infodemic Response Alliance (AIRA), which monitors false health information across the continent, reports that at least 17 killings have been linked to the atrophy rumour, although the other deaths remain unverified by independent sources.
Elodie Ho, director of the Nairobi-based alliance, described the consequences bluntly: "It really led to death and murder," she said. Ho said the falsehoods began within communities and were amplified by social media and some local media outlets.
Investigations into video material and eyewitness accounts show churches played a notable role in spreading the story in Tshopo. At least two videos in which clergy and worshippers claimed prayer had cured alleged victims were authenticated. One clip showed a taxi driver speaking onstage at a Christian gathering in Kisangani saying he had been cured by a megachurch pastor. That footage bore the church’s logo and circulated widely online after being posted on TikTok by a church worker; it was also posted on the Facebook page of an online news site where the clip logged more than 300,000 views.
Another video, posted on October 3 by a local congregation, featured a pastor claiming miracle cures in front of congregants. A university student appearing in that clip said he had seen others experience apparent recoveries after the pastor’s prayers.
Local government officials in Tshopo say they treated the rumour seriously. They investigated five people alleged to be victims and found no medical evidence supporting the existence of the illness. The provincial government moved to punish those who had fueled the panic: a local court issued a 12-month prison sentence to a man who accused another person of spreading the disease, and around a dozen arrests were reported, according to local officials.
Still, the fallout continued. In March, a woman in Lualaba province was accused of propagating the same falsehood and was lynched, while another person survived an attack, AIRA said, citing local reports. Those later incidents have not been independently verified.
Health experts and regional officials say the episode in Congo reflects broader, deep-rooted mistrust in medicine and public health efforts across parts of Africa, compounded by the speed and reach of social media and low-cost artificial intelligence tools. Dr. Jean Kaseya, Director General of the African Union’s Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, warned the consequences are literal and measurable. "When populations do not trust vaccines, health workers, or government policies, it means they don’t access services that can help them survive," he said.
Attacks linked to false health claims have also been documented elsewhere in southern Africa, with community leaders and health staff targeted in Mozambique and Malawi over misinformation tied to cholera, further illustrating the regional scope of the problem.
The WHO has fielded a marked increase in public demand for authoritative health information. A WHO-managed healthline established to address misinformation and offer guidance received 3,331 calls in the first quarter of 2025 and 31,636 calls in the fourth quarter, an indicator of the scale of anxiety and confusion. Separately, a WHO initiative that tracks community interactions has recorded roughly 500 incidents related to rumours, conspiracy theories and false information since its launch the previous year.
Locally, AIRA’s manager in Congo, Dr. Bavon Tangunza, said he was alerted to the fake illness in early October after colleagues noted the rumour spreading across the province. The video testimonials that followed proved influential. One clip showed a taxi driver onstage at a religious meeting describing a cure attributed to Pastor Jules Mulindwa of the Pentecostal Church Light of the World in Kisangani. The taxi driver offered no supporting evidence. The video, which carried the church’s logo, circulated widely after being posted to social platforms.
Pastor Mulindwa has been associated with previous claims of miracle cures and was the subject of a defamation judgement that resulted in a 12-month prison term last year, according to a photograph of the court judgement. A close relative who works with the pastor denied that he had served the sentence. The pastor did not respond to requests for comment.
Local media outlets and social channels continued to post material related to the rumour. One local news site that reposted the video acknowledged there was no evidence for the illness but did not explain why the clip remained visible. A local news director defended his outlet’s actions, saying it published material from a variety of sources and noted that it had also published an interview with a medical student who characterized the phenomenon as an anxiety disorder.
Social media companies took limited action after the material was flagged. One platform placed the October church video into a fact-check review process following a referral, with the company saying independent fact-checkers were responsible for determining the appropriate rating and associated restrictions. Another short-form video platform did not reply to requests for comment about the clip.
The violence in October began when health workers wearing high-visibility vests and carrying tablet computers arrived in villages to complete vaccination surveys. In Ilambi village, young men confronted the team and accused them of secretly spreading the fake disease. Jean-Claude Kengefuku Mbatu, a member of the health worker team, escaped the attack. Two medical doctors on the team, Placide Mbungi and John Tangakeya, were killed on the spot after failing to persuade the crowd their work was unrelated to the rumour. Tangakeya’s widow described what happened in stark terms: "They burned him alive, without even leaving me a trace of him," she said.
In the nearby village of Yafira, two other colleagues, Mathieu Mosisi and Kevin Ilunga, sought protection from a policeman but were also killed by an angry crowd, local health officials said. The full circumstances surrounding each death remain partially unclear and have not been independently verified.
Authorities moved quickly to try to blunt the panic. On October 7 the governor’s office issued a public statement declaring the rumours false and dangerous. Over the subsequent month AIRA staff and local health officials developed messaging to be broadcast in local languages by radio, online and through community outreach teams, and held workshops to prepare for future misinformation incidents. Despite these efforts, the rumour has resurfaced intermittently.
Efforts to counter false health narratives have been complicated by funding shortfalls. Cuts to foreign aid from the United States and other countries over the past year have left AIRA with limited resources, according to its director. One funder, the Gates Foundation, confirmed a grant to AIRA remained active through December but did not indicate whether additional funding was under consideration. As a result of constrained budgets, AIRA now has personnel deployed in three countries, down from five, and an AI-based platform intended to monitor online conversations for misinformation has been rendered inoperable because subscriptions to external providers could not be renewed.
Officials at the WHO regional office said discussions were underway to secure financing that would allow AIRA’s work to be sustained and for its activities to be scaled up, reflecting recognition at the regional level that responding to health misinformation requires resources tied to both digital monitoring and community engagement.
The episode in Tshopo underlines how fragile trust in public health institutions can be when rumours meet weak health system reach, social-media amplification and constrained response capacity. It also demonstrates the immediate human cost when falsehoods morph into collective panic: trained health workers performing routine surveys can become targets, and entire communities can be deprived of services when fear drives people away from lifesaving interventions.
Local officials say they will continue investigations and pursue legal action against those identified as provoking the panic. Meanwhile, health teams and misinformation responders are seeking to rebuild confidence at the community level using local-language messaging and grassroots outreach, while urging better support to maintain monitoring tools and staff so that future infodemics can be detected and addressed before they escalate into violence.