Even as the UK government tries to prepare for a new epidemic, scientists in the country have warned that a new “deadly virus” is killing a patient almost every second
Posted Date – 11:49 PM, Thursday – 6/15/23
London: As the UK government tries to prepare for a new pandemic, scientists in the country have warned that a new “deadly virus” is killing a patient almost every second.
The arrival of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) is “highly likely” due to climate change, the government’s Science, Innovation and Technology Council has been told, The Mirror reports.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), CCHF has a mortality rate of up to 40 percent and is difficult to prevent or treat because it is transmitted by ticks or animal tissue.
It is also on the World Health Organization’s list of “priority” diseases and has been found in Eastern Europe and what is now France.
The scientists pointed out that NHS doctors may not have detected the CCHF infection because they had not previously anticipated it, the scientists told the committee.
Professor James Wood, head of Cambridge University’s Department of Veterinary Medicine, told the committee it was “highly likely” that CCHF would reach the UK at some point, but it was difficult to know which viruses would arrive and when, the report said.
“Until it arrives, we don’t know what’s going to happen.
“It is highly likely that some tick-borne infections, such as Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, were transmitted in the UK by our ticks at some point,” he said.
In addition, the scientists pointed out that the warm weather in the UK will also pave the way for other diseases, including Rift Valley fever, Zika virus and breakbone fever, a severe strain that is fatal to humans.
Professor Brian Charleston, director of the Pirbright Institute, said the disease was “slowly moving north”.
According to Professor Sir Peter Horby, director of the Institute of Epidemiological Sciences at the University of Oxford, climate change is confusing the distribution map for some diseases.
“Dengue is a typical South American and Southeast Asian disease that is highly endemic in those countries (has) spread north and you’re now seeing spread in the Mediterranean,” he said.
