From Mdwiki - Reading time: 20 min| Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever | |
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| Male diagnosed with Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever, 1969 | |
| Specialty | Infectious disease |
| Symptoms | Fever, muscle pains, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding into the skin[1] |
| Complications | Liver failure[1] |
| Usual onset | Rapid[1] |
| Duration | Two weeks[1] |
| Diagnostic method | Detecting antibodies, the virus's RNA, or the virus itself[1] |
| Differential diagnosis | Dengue fever, Q fever,[2] Ebola virus disease[3] |
| Treatment | Supportive care, ribavirin[1] |
| Prognosis | Risk of death ~25%[1] |
Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a viral disease.[1] Symptoms of CCHF may include fever, muscle pains, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, and bleeding into the skin.[1] Onset of symptoms is less than two weeks following exposure.[1] Complications may include liver failure.[1] In those who survive, recovery generally occurs around two weeks after onset.[1]
The CCHF virus is typically spread by tick bites or contact with livestock carrying the disease.[1] Groups that are at high risk of infection are farmers and those who work in slaughterhouses.[1] The virus can also spread between people via body fluids.[1] Diagnosis is by detecting antibodies, the virus's RNA, or the virus itself.[1] It is a type of viral hemorrhagic fever.[1]
Prevention involves avoiding tick bites.[1] A vaccine is not commercially available.[1] Treatment is typically with supportive care.[1] The medication ribavirin may also help.[1]
It occurs in Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East, and Asia.[1] Often it occurs in outbreaks.[1] In 2013 Iran, Russia, Turkey, and Uzbekistan documented more than fifty cases.[2] The risk of death among those affected is between 10 and 40%.[1] It was first detected in the 1940s.[4]
The illness in humans is a severe form of hemorrhagic fever.[5] Typically, after a 1–3 day incubation period following a tick bite, flu-like symptoms appear. Signs of bleeding can appear within 3–5 days of the onset of illness in case of poor containment of the first symptoms: mood instability, agitation, mental confusion and throat petechiae; and soon after nosebleeds, vomiting.[6] Disseminated intravascular coagulation may occur[7], as well as acute sometimes acute respiratory distress syndrome may occur [7];children usually begin to recover 9 days after first symptoms appeared, adults take longer.[8] Up to 30% of infected people die due to severe illness.[9]
| Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever orthonairovirus | |
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| Virus classification | |
| (unranked): | Virus |
| Realm: | Riboviria |
| Kingdom: | Orthornavirae |
| Phylum: | Negarnaviricota |
| Class: | Ellioviricetes |
| Order: | Bunyavirales |
| Family: | Nairoviridae |
| Genus: | Orthonairovirus |
| Species: | Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever orthonairovirus
|
The Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever orthonairovirus (CCHFV) is a member of the genus Orthonairovirus, family Nairoviridae of RNA viruses.[10]
The virions are 80–120 nanometers (nm) in diameter and are pleomorphic. There are no host ribosomes within the virion. Each virion contains three copies of the genome. The envelope is single layered and is formed from a lipid bilayer 5 nm thick. It has no protrusions. The envelope proteins form small projections ~5–10 nm long. The nucleocapsids are filamentous and circular with a length of 200–3000 nm.[11] The virus might enter a cell using the cell surface protein nucleolin.[12]
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) virion and replication cycle.
The genome is circular, negative sense RNA in three parts – Small (S), Medium (M) and Large (L). The L segment is 11–14.4 kilobases in length while the M and S segments are 4.4–6.3 and 1.7–2.1 kilobases long respectively. The L segment encodes the RNA polymerase, the M segment encodes the envelope glycoproteins (Gc and Gn), and the S segment encodes the nucleocapsid protein.[11] The mutation rates for the three parts of the genome were estimated to be: 1.09×10−4, 1.52×10−4 and 0.58×10−4 substitutions/site/year for the S, M, and L segments respectively.[15]
CCHFV is the most genetically diverse of the arboviruses: Its nucleotide sequences frequently differ between different strains, ranging from a 20% variability for the viral S segment to 31% for the M segment.[16] Viruses with diverse sequences can be found within the same geographic area; closely related viruses have been isolated from widely separated regions, suggesting that viral dispersion has occurred possibly by ticks carried on migratory birds or through international livestock trade.[17][18]
Based on the sequence data, seven genotypes of CCHFV have been recognised: Africa 1 (Senegal), Africa 2 (Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Africa), Africa 3 (southern and western Africa), Europe 1 (Albania, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Russia and Turkey), Europe 2 (Greece), Asia 1 (the Middle East, Iran and Pakistan) and Asia 2 (China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan).[19]

Ticks are both "environmental reservoir" and vector for the virus, carrying it from wild animals to domestic animals and humans. Tick species identified as infected with the virus include Argas reflexus, Hyalomma anatolicum, Hyalomma detritum, Hyalomma marginatum marginatum and Rhipicephalus sanguineus.[20][21]
At least 31 different species of ticks from the genera Haemaphysalis and Hyalomma in southeastern Iran have been found to carry the virus.[22]Wild animals and small mammals, particularly European hare, Middle-African hedgehogs and multimammate rats are the "amplifying hosts" of the virus. Birds are generally resistant to CCHF, with the exception of ostriches. Domestic animals like sheep, goats and cattle can develop high titers of virus in their blood, but tend not to fall ill.[23]The "sporadic infection" of humans is usually caused by a Hyalomma tick bite. Animals can transmit the virus to humans, but this would usually be as part of a disease cluster. When clusters of illness occur, it is typically after people treat, butcher or eat infected livestock. [21][24]
Humans can infect humans and outbreaks also occur in clinical facilities through infected blood and unclean medical instruments.[25]
In terms of the pathogenesis of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, due to a variety of factors, it is not well understood. What is known of this virus mechanism is that endothelial cells and immune cells play a large role; the occupation of viral antigens in endothelial cells, is an indication that the endothelium is a important target of the virus.[26]

The diagnosis of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) can be done via the following:[27]
Where mammalian tick infection is common, agricultural regulations require de-ticking farm animals before transportation or delivery for slaughter. Personal tick avoidance measures are recommended, such as use of insect repellents, adequate clothing, and body inspection for adherent ticks.When feverish individuals have evidence of bleeding, body substance isolation precautions should be taken.[28][29]
Since the 1970s, several vaccine trials around the world against CCHF have been terminated due to high toxicity.[30]
As of March 2011[update], the only available and probably somewhat efficacious CCHF vaccine has been an inactivated antigen preparation then used in Bulgaria.[30] No publication in the scientific literature related to this vaccine exists, which a Turkish virologist called suspicious both because antiquated technology and mouse brain were used to manufacture it.[31] More vaccines are under development, but the sporadic nature of the disease, even in endemic countries, suggests that large trials of vaccine efficacy will be difficult to perform. Finding volunteers may prove challenging, given growing anti-vaccination sentiment and resistance of populations to vaccination against contagious diseases. The number of people to be vaccinated, and the length of time they would have to be followed to confirm protection would have to be carefully defined. Alternatively, many scientists appear to believe that treatment of CCHF with ribavirin is more practical than prevention, but some recently conducted clinical trials appear to counter assumptions of drug efficacy.[30] In 2011, a Turkish research team led by Erciyes University successfully developed the first non-toxic preventive vaccine, which passed clinical trials. As of 2012, the vaccine was pending approval by the US FDA.[31]
Since the Ebola epidemic, the WHO jumpstarted a "Blueprint for Research and Development preparedness" on emerging pathogens with epidemic potential, against which there are no medical treatments.[32] CCHF was the top priority on the initial list from December 2015, and is second as of January 2017.[33]

Treatment is mostly supportive. Ribavirin is used in treatment of this virus via both oral and intravenous formulations which seem effective.[5][23]
As of 2011[update] the use of Immunoglobulin preparations has remained unproven and antibody engineering, which raised hopes for monoclonal antibody therapy, has remained in its infancy.[30]
CCHD occurs most frequently among agricultural workers, following the bite of an infected tick, and to a lesser extent among slaughterhouse workers exposed to the blood and tissues of infected livestock, and medical personnel through contact with the body fluids of infected persons.[16]
In 2008, more than 50 cases/year were reported from only 4 countries: Turkey, Iran, Russia and Uzbekistan. 5-49 cases/year were present in South Africa, Central Asia including Pakistan and Afghanistan (but sparing Turkmenistan), in the Middle East only the UAE and the Balkan countries limited to Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo-Albania.[34]
As of 2013[update] the northern limit of CCHF has been 50 degrees northern latitude, north of which the Hyalomma ticks have not been found.[5] Per a WHO map from 2008, Hyalomma ticks occurred south of this latitude across all of the Eurasian continent and Africa, sparing only the islands of Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Japan.[34] Serological or virological evidence of CCHF was widespread in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East (except Israel, Lebanon and Jordan), central Africa, Western Africa, South Africa and Madagascar.[34]
In 2014 the CDC indicated endemic areas largely unchanged in Africa and the Middle East, but different for the Balkan, including all countries of the former Yugoslavia, and also Greece, but no longer Romania. India's Northwestern regions of Rajastan and Gujarat saw their first cases.[25]
The following are the many outbreaks of Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever:


The virus may have evolved around 1500–1100 BC. It is thought that changing climate and agricultural practices around this time could be behind its evolution.[15]In the 12th century a case of a hemorrhagic disease reported from what is now Tajikistan may have been the first known case of Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever.[61] During the Crimean War, the disease was known as "Crimean fever" and contracted by many, including Florence Nightingale.[62]
In 1944, Soviet scientists first identified the disease they called Crimean hemorrhagic fever in Crimea.[63] In February 1967, virologists Jack Woodall, David Simpson, Ghislaine Courtois and others published initial reports on a virus they called the Congo virus.[64][65] In 1956, the Congo virus had first been isolated by physician Ghislaine Courtois, head of the Provincial Medical Laboratory, Stanleyville, in the Belgian Congo, it was Strain V3011.[66][67][68]
In June 1967, Soviet virologist Mikhail Chumakov registered an isolate from a fatal case that occurred in Samarkand in the Catalogue of Arthropod-borne Viruses.[69] In 1969, the Russian strain, which Chumakov had sent to the RFVL, was published to be identical to the Congo virus.[70]
The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses proposed the name Congo–Crimean hemorrhagic fever virus, but the Soviets insisted on Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever virus. In 1973, against all principles of scientific nomenclature based on priority of publication, it was adopted as the official name, in possibly the first instance of a virus losing its name to politics and the Cold War.[71]
These reports include records of the occurrence of the virus or antibodies to the virus from Greece, Portugal, South Africa, Madagascar (the first isolation from there), the Maghreb, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq.[72][73][74]
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