Fatal Tick-Spreading Disease Could Reach England Again

News18 recently reported the U.K.'s Science, Innovation, and Technology Committee was informed the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is highly likely heading in its direction, thanks to climate change.

We don't know what will arrive until it does, was a comment shared during the meeting on June 14, 2023.

Last year, the U.K. Health Security Agency confirmed a case of CCHF in England in a woman who had recently traveled to Central Asia. This was only the third case of CCHF imported to the U.K.

Outbreaks have been confirmed in Iraq, Namibia, and Pakistani in 2023. In Iraq, there were 219 confirmed cases of CCHF from January 2022 to late June 2022. 

First described in the Crimean Peninsula in 1944, CCHF is endemic in all of Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East, and Asia, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO says CCHF is a viral disease spread via ticks with a fatality rate of between 10 and 40%.

Human-to-human transmission of CCHF has been reported following close contact with blood, secretions, or other bodily fluids of infected persons. And cases have been reported among health workers caring for infected people.

Regarding preventive vaccines, the WHO published an overview of CCHF vaccine candidates.

And in March 2023, eBioMedicine published a study that supported further development of the ChAd platform expressing the CCHFV GPC to seek an effective vaccine against CCHFV.

In the U.K., no licensed human vaccine or approved medication targeting CCHF is available as of June 20, 2023.