CRIMEAN-CONGO HEMORRHAGIC FEVER - TURKEY (07)
Date: Fri 14 Aug 2009
Source: The National newspaper [edited]
<http://www.thenational.ae/
Like much of the rest of the world, Turkey is busy trying to prevent a
major outbreak of swine flu [influenza pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus
infection], scanning arriving passengers at airports and ordering millions
of doses of vaccine. But away from the spotlight, another deadly disease is
on the march in central Anatolia: Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF),
which is spread by ticks and has already killed more than 50 people this
year [2009].
News of the rising death toll has alerted the public. "CCHF is more
dangerous than swine flu," a headline in a Turkish newspaper said recently.
But as CCHF continues to claim lives, some experts said the government is
not doing enough to counter the threat. "If there had been almost 60 deaths
from a disease in Germany, that would be a sensation, but in Turkey, it's
hardly on the agenda," Mehmet Alkan, president of the Turkish Union of
Veterinary Doctors, said yesterday [13 Aug 2009]. "The authorities have
been doing something, but it's not enough."
According to official figures released last week, 53 people have died from
CCHF since January [2009]. There have been more than 3000 cases since the
disease 1st appeared in Turkey in 2002, with at least 208 deaths. There
were 63 fatal cases last year [2008] statistics posted on the website of
the health ministry in Ankara show.
CCHF is transmitted by a virus found in ticks. According to the World
Health Organization (WHO), the disease was named after Crimea, where it was
1st described in 1944, and after the Congo, where it was identified a
decade later. Countries at risk stretch from China to Africa and south
western Europe and include the Arabian peninsula, WHO said.
Symptoms of CCHF, which has been compared to Ebola and Lassa fever, include
a sudden high fever, vomiting, and bleeding. There is no vaccine. According
to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the USA, mortality
rates in hospitalised cases vary between 9 per cent and 50 per cent.
"Unfortunately, CCHF is a disease without a vaccine and without a specific
treatment," Turan Buzgan, a senior health ministry official in Ankara, told
reporters last week. Doctors said the most effective ways to fight CCHF are
precautions such as wearing long-sleeved shirts, and tucking trouser legs
into socks while out in the field [to prevent exposure to ticks], as well
as a quick and professional removal of ticks from the body.
In Turkey, rural regions in the northern part of central Anatolia have been
most severely hit. Although there has been a case of a young nurse dying
from the disease after she was infected by the blood of a CCHF patient,
most of the victims have been farmers who were bitten by ticks while
working on their fields. Officials say 95 per cent of cases have occurred
in 1200 villages. Dr Alkan said the fact that most cases had occurred in
poor rural areas had contributed to a lack of attention to the problem.
"Poor people are the victims, not the ones in luxury homes in the cities."
If ticks ever entered the villas of the rich, "more would be done. I am not
saying that in an ideological sense but from a humanitarian point of view."
In some parts of the country, suspected cases of CCHF have triggered panic.
When an elderly man was brought to hospital in the western town of
Balikesir after allegedly being bitten by a tick last month [July 2009],
medical personnel were given face masks, and the clinic stopped accepting
other patients. The CCHF suspicion later turned out to be unfounded.
Dr Alkan called for a comprehensive effort to tackle CCHF. That plan should
include different ministries as well as scientists and should be regarded
as a long-term effort to defeat the disease. "At the moment, there is no
well-planned approach," he said. Instead, Turkey's health authorities have
focused their attention on swine flu. There are 240 confirmed cases [of
influenza pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus infection] in the country, according
to the latest official count, but there have not been any deaths. Ten
million people are to be vaccinated against the flu before the end of the
year [2009], while another 10 million doses of vaccine are expected to
arrive in the country early next year [2010].
Measures to prevent the spread of the flu have been in place for months.
Passengers flying into Turkey have to fill out forms to inform authorities
of how they can be contacted in case another person from the same flight is
diagnosed with swine flu. Infra-red cameras have been installed in arrival
halls of major airports to identify passengers suffering from high fever.
Recep Akdag, the health minister, rejected accusations that the fight
against CCHF was being overshadowed by efforts to prevent a mass outbreak
of swine flu. CCHF was not connected to a worldwide pandemic such as swine
flu, the minister told reporters in June 2009.
[byline: Thomas Seibert]
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