Georgia reports 42 cases of Crimean-Congo virus this year, an upward trend

Georgia has confirmed 42 cases of the Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever over the past seven months, a viral haemorrhagic fever usually transmitted by ticks, head of Georgia’s National Centre for Disease Control, Amiran Gamkrelidze, said Tuesday. 

Gakmkrelidze suggested that Crimean-Congo is one of the most serious diseases, characterized by high fever, dry mouth, dizziness, vomiting, and redness of mucous membranes. 

“Georgia has confirmed 42 cases of the virus over the past seven months. Unfortunately, the virus has claimed two lives.The lethality rate is 4.7%. Crimean-Congo disease appeared in Georgia in 2009. We had one to 15 cases every year, while this year the reported cases are higher than in previous years”, Gamkrelidze stated. 

He said that since 2009, 164 cases of Crimean-Congo virus have been reported in Georgia, claiming 21 lives. 

“Overall, the death rate for all these years was 12.9 percent”, Gamkrelidze said.

He stated that the Ministry of Agriculture and its Veterinary Department was actively involved, both in Samtskhe-Javakheti and in Shida Kartli regions, where the majority of cases were reported, to inform the public and ensure anti-mite substances. 

The virus can also be contracted through contact with viraemic animal tissues – animal tissue where the virus has entered the bloodstream- during and immediately post-slaughter of animals. 

CCHF is endemic in all of Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East and in Asia. 

The disease was first described in the Crimea in 1944 and given the name Crimean haemorrhagic fever.