Guj plans unit to combat Congo fever

Gujarat is planning to set up facilities to check future Congo fever outbreaks. The Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever virus (CCHF) has claimed three lives in the state so far.

State health minister Jay Narayan Vyas informed that there is a plan to set up a laboratory to study CCHF virus at Ahmedabad.

The government has a proposal from Zydus Cadila to produce a vaccine for CCHF in collaboration with the National Institute of Virology (NIV). NIV has already been working on CCHF. CCHF and Dengu patients have common symptoms for first four days.

If one can isolate Dengu cases in this period, effective treatment of CCHF becomes easy. CCHF is a widespread tick borne viral disease that affects humans. Animals infected by CCHF virus have no problem, but the virus is deadly for human beings. The mortality rate is 30 per cent.

Bulgaria had developed a vaccine for CCHF in 1974 after it had an outbreak of the virus in 1954 that killed 487 people.

While the Bulagarian vaccine can be of some help in the short term, but India needs to develop an indigenous vaccine, as the CCHF virus develops local strains.