Deputy Director General of the State Service guarantees reduction of the risk of infection of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever

The Deputy Director General of the Main Directorate of Health (GDS) assured this Friday that the detection of the first case and death from Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (FHCC) represents a reduction in the risk to the population and that the authorities have tightened measures to combat the disease by collecting ticks.

Speaking to Lusa after the first death from FHCC in Portugal, André Peralta Santos left a “message of calm”, recalling that the virus is transmitted through the bites of infected ticks and that “there is no transmission from person to person”, stressing that the investigation carried out did not reveal any case related to a Portuguese citizen over 80 years old living in Bragança.

“It is true that we have diagnosed the first case in Portugal and we regret the death, but we think that the risk to the general population will be reduced and that eventually there may be rare and sporadic cases of ticks to see if we can look at ticks that may be infected with this virus,” he said.

André Peralta Santos also said that the Portuguese surveillance network has not yet detected ticks infected with the virus and that collection efforts are being intensified, “mainly in northern Portugal and on the border with Spain.”

“We have always been in contact with our Spanish colleagues and the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC), where we are conducting a risk assessment, taking into account what we know about the epidemiology of the disease and the presence of ticks. We have already reported this case to international networks. Our concern remains the same; we have increased surveillance of ticks and, ultimately, of cases that may appear with symptoms compatible with this disease,” he stressed.

Despite acknowledging that there is no vaccine for FHCC and that treatment is based on symptoms – fever, nausea, muscle pain and vomiting – the person in charge noted that the most serious illness only occurs in about 20% of cases; the remaining 80% have mild symptoms. However, he noted that the DGS alert on Friday was also intended to alert health workers to this possible diagnosis.

“If these symptoms, which are very general, persist for a long time, they always require medical attention, and from the moment of this medical contact the diagnostic path begins to understand whether it could be this disease (or another) …) This warning also reinforces the need to think about the possibility of this disease with the relatively non-specific symptoms it can present,” he said.

The DGS also said that cases of FHCC “have been increasing in recent years, particularly in the context of rising average temperatures in southern Europe and Portugal,” with Spain recording 16 cases since 2013, and André Peralta Santos acknowledging that climate change could have a greater impact at this level in the future.

“In southern Europe, milder winters are a public health concern because they increase the risk of recurrence of so-called relapsing diseases or even the emergence of new diseases such as FHCC. Despite everything, we have surveillance systems for ticks and mosquitoes: the REVIVE network coordinated by the Dr. Ricardo Jorge Institute of Health, and then, in parallel, the human disease surveillance network, SINAVE,” he concluded;