Development of vaccines against Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus

Stuart Dowall, Miles Carroll, Roger Hewson*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

73 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) is a deadly human pathogen of the utmost seriousness being highly lethal causing devastating disease symptoms that result in intense and prolonged suffering to those infected. During the past 40 years, this virus has repeatedly caused sporadic outbreaks responsible for relatively low numbers of human casualties, but with an alarming fatality rate of up to 80% in clinically infected patients. CCHFV is transmitted to humans by Hyalomma ticks and contact with the blood of viremic livestock, additionally cases of human-to-human transmission are not uncommon in nosocomial settings. The incidence of CCHF closely matches the geographical range of permissive ticks, which are widespread throughout Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. As such, CCHFV is the most widespread tick-borne virus on earth. It is a concern that recent data shows the geographic distribution of Hyalomma ticks is expanding. Migratory birds are also disseminating Hyalomma ticks into more northerly parts of Europe thus potentially exposing naïve human populations to CCHFV. The virus has been imported into the UK on two occasions in the last five years with the first fatal case being confirmed in 2012. A licensed vaccine to CCHF is not available. In this review, we discuss the background and complications surrounding this limitation and examine the current status and recent advances in the development of vaccines against CCHFV.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)6015-6023
Number of pages9
JournalVaccine
Volume35
Issue number44
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Oct 2017

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017

Keywords

  • Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever
  • Review
  • Vaccine

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