NASIRIYAH, IRAQ: Health professionals target blood-sucking ticks at the heart of Iraq’s worst-known outbreak of a fever that causes victims to bleed to death by spraying a cow with insecticides.
As the Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever spreads from animals to humans, the sight of health professionals outfitted in full protective gear has become typical in the Iraqi countryside.
According to the World Health Organization, 19 people have died in Iraq this year as a result of 111 CCHF cases in humans.
The virus has no vaccine and can strike quickly, producing serious internal and external bleeding, particularly from the nose. According to doctors, it is fatal in up to two-fifths of instances.
“The number of illnesses reported is extraordinary,” said Haidar Hantouche, a Dhi Qar province health official.
The province, which is a poor farming region in southern Iraq, accounts for approximately half of Iraq’s cases.
He stated that in earlier years, incidents could be counted “on the fingers of one hand.”
The virus is spread by ticks and infects both wild and domesticated animals, including buffalo, cattle, goats, and sheep, all of which are abundant in Dhi Qar.
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Bite of a tick
A crew disinfects animals in a stable near to a house where a woman was sick in the village of Al-Bujari. The employees spray insecticides on a cow and her two calves while wearing masks, goggles, and overalls.
Ticks that have fallen from the cow and been collected in a jar are displayed by a worker.
The World Health Organization states, “Animals become infected through the biting of infected ticks.”
“People get infected with the CCHF virus through tick bites or contact with infected animal blood or tissues during and immediately after slaughter,” it continues.
Officials have been taken aback by the spike of cases this year, which considerably outnumber those reported in the 43 years since the virus was originally discovered in Iraq in 1979.
Only 16 instances with seven deaths have been reported in his province in 2021, according to Hantouche. However, Dhi Qar has documented 43 cases this year, with eight deaths.
Although the numbers are still insignificant in comparison to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in over 25,200 fatalities and 2.3 million illnesses, according to WHO estimates, health workers are concerned.
CCHF is endemic in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Balkans, with a death rate of 10 to 40%, according to the WHO.
Ahmed Zouiten, the WHO’s representative in Iraq, said the country’s outbreak might be caused by a number of “hypotheses.”
During COVID-19 outbreaks in 2020 and 2021, they included the proliferation of ticks in the absence of animal spraying efforts.
And, he added, “we attribute part of this outbreak, very cautiously, to global warming, which has increased the period of tick multiplication.”
“Mortality appears to be diminishing,” he added, noting that Iraq had initiated a counter-offensive.
Slaughterhouses are being investigated.
The majority of cases are among farmers, slaughterhouse workers, and veterinarians, according to the WHO, because the virus is “mainly transmitted” to people via ticks on cattle.
“Human-to-human transmission can occur as a result of close contact with infected persons’ blood, saliva, organs, or other bodily fluids,” it says.
The virus also produces a high fever and vomiting, in addition to uncontrollable bleeding.
Medics fear that during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha in July, when households usually butcher an animal to feed visitors, there may be an increase in instances.
“There are fears of a rise in cases around Eid because of the increased slaughter of animals and more interaction with meat,” said Azhar al-Assadi, a doctor specialising in haematological illnesses at a hospital in Nasiriya
He stated the majority of people infected were “about 33 years old,” but their ages ranged from 12 to 75.
Authorities have launched disinfection efforts and are enforcing sanitary regulations at abattoirs that do not follow them. Several provinces have also made it illegal to transport animals beyond their boundaries.
Authorities are monitoring slaughterhouses in Najaf, a city in the south.
According to workers and officials there, the virus has had a negative impact on meat consumption.
Butcher Hamid Mohsen stated, “I used to slaughter 15 or 16 animals a day – today it’s more like seven or eight.”
In the meantime, Fares Mansour, director of the Najaf Veterinary Hospital, which controls the abattoirs, said the quantity of cattle arriving for slaughter had dropped to about half of typical levels.
“People
