Afghanistan reports gradual increasing trend in CCHF cases
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports a gradually increasing trend in Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) cases over the last 8 weeks—between late April and the week ending June 15, cases went steadily from 13 per week to 47 per week, respectively.
Since the beginning of the year, Afghanistan reported a total of 272 suspected cases (38 confirmed) of CCHF with 11 associated deaths (CFR=4.0%).
All the suspected cases were over five years of age, while 83 (30.5%) of them were females.
The 11 deaths were all over five years and reported from Kabul (5), Balkh (4) and Kunduz (2) provinces.
During the week ending June 15, following visit of Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH), 6,800 tablets of ribavirin and 2,000 injection of ribavirin were provided to IDH in Kabul.
Based on the meeting conducted by WHO with Food Agriculture Organization (FAO), Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation and livestock (MAIL), Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), and Communicable Disease Control (CDC) department of MoPH in previous week, below activities have been performed:
Insecticides have been supplied to all 34 provinces for cattle spraying against ticks in animal markets by MAIL and FAO.
Cattle spraying and awareness activities have been conducted in animal markets before Eid al-Adha by MAIL.
WHO sent 65,600 (23,000 Poster and 42,600 Brochure) Information, Education and Communication (IEC) materials to 9 provinces (Mazar, Kandahar, Herat, Nangarhar, Paktya, Kunduz, Bamyan, Dykundi, Badakhshan) and WHO Central-region NDSR officers. These IEC materials will be used during the RCCE campaign on CCHF and other infectious diseases.
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever is a widespread disease caused by a tick-borne virus (Nairovirus) of the Bunyaviridae family. The CCHF virus causes severe viral hemorrhagic fever outbreaks, with a case fatality rate of 10–40%.
Animals become infected by the bite of infected ticks and the virus remains in their bloodstream for about one week after infection, allowing the tick-animal-tick cycle to continue when another tick bites. Although a number of tick genera are capable of becoming infected with CCHF virus, ticks of the genus Hyalomma are the principal vector.
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The CCHF virus is transmitted to people either by tick bites or through contact with infected animal blood or tissues during and immediately after slaughter. The majority of cases have occurred in people involved in the livestock industry, such as agricultural workers, slaughterhouse workers and veterinarians. Human-to-human transmission is possible.
The virus is widespread in some countries of Africa and Asia, in the Balkans, the Middle East and in the south of the European part of Russia.