Genetic Detection and Isolation ofCrimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, Kosovo, Yugoslavia

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (C-CHFV) strains were isolated from a fatal case and the attending physician in Kosovo, Yugoslavia.Early, rapid diagnosis of the disease was achieved by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction.The physician was successfully treated with oral ribavirin.These cases yielded the first genetically studied C-CHFV human isolates in the Balkans.rimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (C-CHF) is a tickborne hemorrhagic fever with documented person-to-person transmission and a case-fatality rate of approximately 30%.Nosocomial outbreaks caused by Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (formal abbreviation, C-CHFV; genus Nairovirus, family Bunyaviridae) have been reported in several countries.This widespread virus has been found in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and eastern Europe.C-CHFV was first identified in the Balkans in 1954.In 1973, Gligic et al. isolated three C-CHFV strains (Ciflik 1, 6, and 11) from two Hyalomma plumbeum plumbeum and one castor bean tick (Ixodes ricinus) (1).Since then, C-CHF has occurred every year in the Balkan Peninsula, with the number of cases related to the number of ticks infected.During the spring and summer of 2001, an outbreak of C-CHF occurred in Kosovo, with 69 suspected cases, 18 of them laboratory or clinically confirmed, 6 of them fatal (2).