Survey of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Enzootic Focus, Spain, 2011–2015

Abstract

During 2011–2015, we conducted a Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) survey in captured ticks that were feeding mainly on wild and domestic ungulates in Spain, where presence of this virus had been reported previously. We detected CCHFV RNA in Hyalomma lusitanicum and H. marginatum ticks for 3 of the 5 years. The rate of infected ticks was 2.78% (44/1,579), which was similar to those for other countries in Europe with endemic foci for CCHFV (Kosovo, Bulgaria, and Albania). These data confirm the established spread of CCHFV into western Europe. Phylogenetic study of the small RNA segment showed Africa-3 clade as the only genotype identified, although we observed cocirculation of genetic variants during 2011 and 2015. We could not rule out genetic reassortments because of lack of sequence data for the medium and large RNA segments of the virus genome.

Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) virus-specific antibody detection in blood donors, Castile-León, Spain, summer 2017 and 2018

“…In 2016, the first autochthonous human infection was recognised in a man who travelled to the province of Ávila, 300 km south-west of Caceres where the infected ticks had been identified [25]. After an extensive effort of public health vigilance, the virus was identified in ticks feeding on domestic and wild animals in western Spain [26][27][28]. This could be attributed to the silent circulation of CCHFV introduced some time ago from West Africa by migratory birds [26,29].…”

Development of a multiplex assay for antibody detection in serum against pathogens affecting ruminants

“…More recently, some human cases have been reported for the first time in South-Eastern Europe (Mertens, Schmidt, Ozkul, & Groschup, 2013) and Spain (Negredo et al, 2019). The transmission to humans occurs through tick bites or exposure to blood or other body fluids of an infected animal or human (Bente et al, 2013).…”

Geographical Variability Affects CCHFV Detection by RT–PCR: A Tool for In-Silico Evaluation of Molecular Assays

“…Moreover, pairwise distances between sequences were calculated using the Kimura model. In agreement with previous works, branch positions, pairwise distances, and collection countries were used to identify separate CCHFV clades within the phylogenetic tree [5,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22].…”

“…Most of the isolates causing outbreaks in Eastern Europe belong to Clade V, whereas Clade VI includes largely divergent strains isolated from ticks in Greece (including the strain AP92) [4,18] and Turkey [19]. Isolates belonging to the “African” Clade III were also collected in Spain from infected ticks in 2010 [20] and during 2011–2015 [21], which were found to have caused human infections in 2016 [22]. One more recent human infection in Spain in 2018 were caused by a CCHFV not yet characterized [23].…”