The Crimea-Congo virus has reached Bierzo and put Galicia on alert

high mortality, lack of vaccines and opportunities for their transmission between people and mutations Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever It is one of the diseases that worries the World Health Organization the most. Following the first case identified in El Bierzo in 2021, researchers from the Health and Biotechnology Research Group (SaBio) of the Game Resources Research Institute (IREC-CSIC, UCLM; JCCM) in collaboration with scientists from the National Center for Microbiology (Institute of Health Carlos II, Madrid) began a study to determine The virus was circulating in ticks on the outskirts of Ponferrada.

The researchers walked 30 kilometers around the capital of the neighboring region of Bercia., collected ticks with cotton blankets, and observed tracks of wild ungulates (mammals), and the presence of disease-carrying ticks was assessed by the density of farms and cattle. Brought to the laboratory, it was found that 10 of the 95 samples analyzed “were infected with Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus,” according to IREC, which believes that “the results of this evolving scenario suggest the need to consider that Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus may indeed spread to northwestern Spain.”

IREC indicates Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever appeared in people in northwestern Spain in 2021, with one case associated with a tick bite on the outskirts of Ponferrada, and two more recorded in 2022 “with the tragic result of the death of a 51-year-old forestry agent.” Of these, 13 cases have been confirmed in Spain since 2013.