by NewsDesk Laugh
in tracking Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) In South Africa this year, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NICD) reported the country’s third confirmed human case in 2022.
The most recent case, a 36-year-old male from the Cape Winelands region who became ill on October 8, 2022 and was admitted to a local hospital on October 12, 2022 with symptoms of fever, chills, headache, nausea and vomiting.
Abdominal pain, muscle pain, cough, malaise.
Subsequent symptoms included frank bleeding, such as purpura, ecchymosis, petechiae, softened stool, and disseminated intravascular coagulation. The patient also had liver failure.
The patient works in a slaughterhouse in the Cape Winelands area and, given the occupational hazards and clinical picture, was clinically diagnosed with CCHF on October 17, 2022 and laboratory confirmed the following day.
The patient is currently recovering. The slaughterhouse worker most likely contracted the infection after entering
Contact with blood and tissues of infected animals during sheep slaughter.
The three confirmed cases were reported this year in the Western Cape (n=2) and the Eastern Cape (n=1).
