European Commission As a deadly disease that people can catch from ticks moves across the continent, the EU is seeking new tests and a vaccine for the infection.
A 62-year-old man was bitten by a tick while hiking through fields in Spain. Two days later he began to feel ill and was taken to a hospital in Madrid, where his condition deteriorated rapidly. He died on the ninth day of his illness.
This was in 2016 and proved to be the first fatality in Spain caused by Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF), a disease spread by ticks that starts with flu-like symptoms and often can end in organ failure.
Northward advance
‘The ticks are moving up through Europe due to climate change, with longer and drier summers,’ said Professor Ali Mirazimi, a virologist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.
The initial case was challenging to diagnose for Spanish doctors because the haemorrhagic fever had been absent from western Europe. A nurse at the patient’s hospital also contracted the fever from him, but survived after weeks in intensive care.
Then, in July 2022, another man in Spain was hospitalised with the same disease. Scientists are now warning that CCHF, which can kill between 10% and 40% of patients, is spreading northward and westward in Europe.
It is caused by a virus in a type of tick that feeds on small animals when it’s a juvenile and then moves to larger ones, including livestock, as an adult.
CCHF was first described during an outbreak in 1944 among soldiers in Crimea on the northern coast of the Black Sea and sporadic outbreaks are still recorded today, especially in Africa, eastern Europe, Turkey, central Asia and India. The disease is spreading globally.
One infected tick can produce thousands of infected eggs. The young ticks feed on small mammals such as rabbits as well as on birds.
The avian link allows the ticks to hitch a ride and the virus to colonise new areas.
Dangerous arrivals
‘Once we find the infected ticks, we know that sooner or later there will be an outbreak,’ said Mirazimi