First CCHF case detected in Tikrit
The first human case of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) was detected in Salah a-Din province, a medical source said on Friday.
"Doctors in the Tikrit teaching hospital managed to diagnose a case of a young woman as CCHF, but they could not stop the hemorrhagic till now," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
"
The case is a young woman, around 30, from Falluja city in Anbar province," he noted.
The disease dates back to the summers of 1944 and 1945, when over 200 cases of an acute, hemorrhagic,
febrile illness occurred in Soviet troops rescuing the harvest following the ethnic cleansing of the Crimean Tatars. Virus was discovered in blood samples of patients and in the tick Hyalomma marginatum.
Typically, after a 1-3 day incubation period following a tick bite (5-6 days after exposure to infected blood or tissues), flu-like symptoms appear, which may resolve after one week. In up to 75% of cases, however, signs of hemorrhage appear within 3-5 days of the onset of illness: first mood instability, agitation, mental confusion and throat petechiae, then soon nosebleeds, bloody urine and vomiting, and black stools. The liver becomes swollen and painful.
Disseminated intravascular coagulation may occur as well as acute kidney failure and shock, and sometimes acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Patients usually begin to recover after 9-10 days from symptom onset, but 30% die in the second week of illness.
The source affirmed that the hospital took the precautionary measures to isolate the patient and to prevent spreading the disease.
"The hospital's management decided to send the patient to a more developed hospital in northern Iraq," he also said, noting that the (CCHF) is a very dangerous disease and needs a developed medical equipments.
"These equipments do not exist in the Tikrit teaching hospital." the source underlined.
Hyalomma ticks are widespread throughout Europe, Asia, the Middle East, eastern Asia, and Africa, and evidence of CCHF virus has been found in all these regions.
The virus is transmitted to humans by the bite of infected ticks, direct contact with blood or infected tissues from viremic animals, and direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person.
Tikrit, 175 km north of Baghdad, is the capital of Salah ad-Din province.
Translated version of http://www.coriraq.net/ara/default.aspx
Soviet Era Bio-Weapon?
The disease dates back to the summers of 1944 and 1945, when over 200 cases of an acute, hemorrhagic,
febrile illness occurred in Soviet troops rescuing the harvest following the ethnic cleansing of the Crimean Tatars. Virus was discovered in blood samples of patients and in the tick Hyalomma marginatum.