Description
GENERAL INFORMATION
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a widespread tick-
borne viral disease, a zoonosis of domestic animals and wild
animals, that may affect humans. The pathogenic virus, especially
common in East and West Africa, is a member of the Bunyaviridae
family of RNA viruses. Clinical disease is rare in infected mammals,
but is commonly severe in infected humans, with a 30% mortality
rate. Outbreaks of illness are usually attributable to handling infected
animals or humans. CCHF is distributed throughout Eastern Europe,
the Mediterranean, northwestern China, central Asia Africa, the
Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent.
The virus genome is circular, ambisense RNA in three parts – Small
(S), Middle (M) and Large (L). The L segment encodes the RNA
polymerase; the M segment encodes the envelope proteins (Gc and
Gn); and the S segment encodes the nucleocapsid protein. The
envelope protein is initially translated as a glycoprotein precursor
which is then cleaved into two smaller proteins. Based on the
sequence data seven genotypes have been recognized: 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).
Vaccines: A Turkish research team led by Refik Saydam Health
Institute has developed treatment-serum derived from blood of
several CCHF-patients, which have been proven to be %90 effective
in CCHF patients. The vaccine is pending for FDA approval.
ADI has cloned, expressed and purified CCHFV nucleoprotein (482-
aa, ~55 kDa) that is being used as a candidate for newer subunit
vaccine for CCHF
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