The growing public health concern of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus (CCHFV)

The growing public health concern of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus (CCHFV) Mohammad M. Sajadi and Scott D. Pegan discuss leveraging cross-reactive monoclonals and next-generation vaccines to address Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus diversity. Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) is a zoonotic negative (-) sense RNA bunyavirus of the Nairoviridae family. CCHFV is widely distributed across Africa and wide swaths of Europe and Asia. It has also recently emerged, with fatal consequences, in the previously CCHFV-naïve country of Spain and has been detected in ticks in France. This underscores the virus’s propensity to continue spreading wherever its Hyalomma tick vector can gain a foothold. (1) Typical mortality rates for CCHFV range from 2-40% in hospitalized cases. (2) As additional countries are becoming at risk and the potential for significant human-to- human transmission increases, CCHFV is considered a dangerous human pathogen by the international community. It is also an NIAID prototype virus for several Nairovirus pathogens that can cause human disease of varying severity.(3)