Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever: experience at a tertiary care hospital in Karachi, Pakistan

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is endemic in certain rural areas of Pakistan. Since the discovery of CCHF virus (CCHFV) in the country in the 1960s, there have been 13 outbreaks in addition to sporadic cases. An outbreak during 2000 coincided with the movement of sacrificial animals from rur...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 2005-08, Vol.99 (8), p.577-584
Main Authors: Jamil, Bushra, Hasan, Rumina S., Sarwari, Arif R., Burton, Jane, Hewson, Roger, Clegg, Christopher
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Arboviral haemorrhagic fevers
Arboviroses
Biological and medical sciences
Blood Cell Count
Body Temperature
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever
Disease Outbreaks
General aspects
Hematologic Diseases - virology
Hemorrhagic Fever Virus, Crimean-Congo - classification
Hemorrhagic Fever Virus, Crimean-Congo - genetics
Hemorrhagic Fever, Crimean - diagnosis
Hemorrhagic Fever, Crimean - epidemiology
Hemorrhagic Fever, Crimean - therapy
Human viral diseases
Humans
Infectious diseases
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Nucleotide sequence
Pakistan
Pakistan - epidemiology
Phylogeny
Prognostic markers
Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction - methods
Reverse transcriptase–PCR
RNA, Viral - genetics
Tropical viral diseases
Viral diseases
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is endemic in certain rural areas of Pakistan. Since the discovery of CCHF virus (CCHFV) in the country in the 1960s, there have been 13 outbreaks in addition to sporadic cases. An outbreak during 2000 coincided with the movement of sacrificial animals from rural to urban areas for the festival of Eid-ul-Azha. Diagnosis was suspected in patients with fever and thrombocytopenia, and confirmed retrospectively using immunoassays and reverse transcriptase-PCR. Patients were given platelet, plasma and red cell infusions. Management varied due to unfamiliarity with the condition and its treatment, lack of availability of diagnostic laboratory tests and limited supply of ribavirin. Inadequate antiviral treatment and late presentation probably contributed to the death of six of the eight patients. Renal failure, disseminated intravascular coagulation and persistent high-grade fever were associated with mortality. The nucleotide sequence of the small genomic RNA segment of the CCHFV isolated in this outbreak was found to be very closely related to the CCHFV strains previously isolated in Pakistan.
ISSN:0035-9203
1878-3503
DOI:10.1016/j.trstmh.2005.03.002