Two more diagnosed with Congo fever

Friday, October 10, 2014

Two more patients tested positive for the Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF).

They were admitted in hospitals for treatment and were said to be in critical conditions.

Aijaz said Sarfraz Solangi, 9, had been admitted in Aga Khan University Hospital with high fever.  He had been diagnosed with CCHF and was being provided the required treatment.

He said another patient identified, Asif, aged 20, resident of Tauheedabad area in Landhi had also been diagnosed with CCHF and was being treated.

CCHF is a tick-borne viral disease, which can afflict domestic and wild animals and may also affect humans. The disease got its name after it was first described in Crimea in 1944 and later found in Congo caused by the same pathogen.

Health experts feared an outbreak of the deadly infection in Pakistan when sacrificial animals were being brought to town from far-flung areas of the country without any precautions ahead of Eid-ul-Azha.

A young butcher from Karachi’s central district had died of CCHF on August 22 in the first case of CCHF in Sindh this year.

Mohammad Kashif, 24, who worked in a butcher’s shop in Azizabad, was admitted to a private hospital with high fever, shortness of breath and internal bleeding two days before he was pronounced dead by doctors.

Experts say that in some rare cases across the world the disease has been reported to have spread from human to human.

The city reported a single CCHF case last year and five cases, including four shepherds who had shifted to Karachi from Balochistan, in 2012.

The disease was first reported in Pakistan in 1976. The number of cases showed a dramatic rise after 2000 with 50 to 60 patients being reported annually. Nearly 50 cases of the disease have so far been reported from different parts of the country this year. However, authorities have taken no precautionary measures to avoid a possible spike of CCHF.