Write a response paper on Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever

In 1944 Crimean-Congo haemorragic fever was first diagnosed in Crimea and that is how it got its name. The disease causes severe haemorrhagic fever the fatality rate is 40%. This disease is commonly found in Africa, the Balkans, Middle East and Asia, but has now emerged in Iran. This disease is derived from a tick borne virus that is called nairovirus. It is most commonly transmitted by ticks and livestock such as both wild and domestic animals like sheep, cattle, and goat. The animals are infected by a tick bite, and transmission between human-to-human is by blood, secretions, organs and bodily fluids from an infected person. The incubation period is normally one to three days but there is a maximum of nine days, the symptoms that are commonly acquired from the disease are fever, myalgia, dizziness, neck pain and stiffness, backache, headache, sore eyes, and photophobia. There can also be nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and a sore throat. The only ways that they are able to diagnose someone with Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever is by, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, antigen detection, serum neutralization, reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction assay, and virus isolation by cell culture with these test they are able to tell if a person has been infected with the disease. With the patients that have a fatal reaction to the fever and patients that have just been infected are only able to be diagnosed by virus or RNA detection in the blood samples. Tests on patients' samples are not recommended because they present an extreme biohazard risk and should not be messed with under maximum biological conditions. As far as treatment goes the antiviral drug ribavirin is the most common drug used to treat Crimean- Congo haemorrhagic fever otherwise the only thing to do for someone that is infected is to use supportive care and treat symptoms to manage the disease. Ways that a person can prevent becoming infected is by reducing the risk of tick-human transmission, reducing risk to animal-human transmission, reducing risk to human-human transmission.

Word count: 344

Reference:

(2013). Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever. World Health Organization. Retrieved from: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs208/en/