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Namibian authorities have reported a deadly case of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) and mentioned they’re following at the very least 27 contacts for doable publicity, with two dozen well being employees counted amongst them.
The male affected person fell unwell in Gobabis, a city not removed from Namibia’s jap border with Botswana, in line with a press release from Ben Nangombe, govt director of the Ministry of Well being and Social Providers. The person was transferred to different services for care and admitted to an isolation unit at Windhoek Central Hospital, the place he died on Might 18.
Namibia says it has seen six instances of CCHF since April 2016. In Senegal, an April 2023 case was confirmed in a 35-year-old butcher dwelling in Guédiawaye, simply northeast of Dakar, after he reported fever and flu-like signs. The person additionally died from the an infection.
CCHF is a hemorrhagic illness, much like Ebola, that causes about 500 fatalities every year, in line with the World Well being Group (WHO). It’s endemic in all of Africa in addition to the Center East and Asia. Its presence in jap Europe was first recognized in Crimea within the Nineteen Forties, with a later discovery making the connection to the identical an infection discovered within the Congo River basin.
The illness is transmitted by ticks and contaminated animals, and leads to dying in roughly 40% of instances. About 70% of individuals recognized with CCHF have a historical past of a tick chew. Though the illness is transmitted to people from ticks and animals, it’s doable for outbreaks of human-to-human instances to emerge, as was the case final yr in Iraq. Uganda reported eight instances between June and December 2022.
Instances related to butcher outlets, together with cattle, sheep, goats and ostrich are usually not unusual, with WHO recommending masks and different private protecting gear for individuals who work as butchers. It’s additionally advisable that animals be quarantined and handled with flea and tick pesticides earlier than slaughter.
There’s not but a vaccine to forestall CCHF, though one has been tried in jap Europe on a small scale, WHO mentioned.
Picture: EPA file/Patrick Pleul by way of WHO
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