Greece tests for fever outbreak after woman dies

Mon Jul 7, 2008 10:50am EDT

ATHENS, July 7 (Reuters) - Authorities in northeastern Greece are investigating a possible outbreak of a rare fever after a woman died last week and a 10-year-old boy was hospitalised.

Officials said the 49-year-old woman from Komotini, some 800 km (500 miles) from Athens, died from Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) after she was bitten by a tick carrying the disease.

The virus, which causes death in around 30 percent of hospitalised patients, is carried in domestic animals and can be found in Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia.

Experts from Greece's Special Disease Centre will test blood samples from the boy, who was hospitalised four days ago with a fever in Alexandroupolis near the Turkish border. A team of veterinarians will also test local animals.

"We will know if it's an epidemic in the following days," said a police official, who asked not to be identified.

The fever first appeared in Crimea in 1944 and was later identified as the cause of an illness that appeared in Democratic Republic of Congo in 1956.

Cases have been recorded in Kosovo, Albania, Iran, Pakistan and South Africa. Symptoms include headaches, back pains, vomiting, severe bruising and nose bleeds.

According to the World Health organisation, CCHF can be treated but recovery is slow. If treatment is not provided in time, death can occur in the second week of illness. (Reporting by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Dominic Evans)



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