Climate change makes it possible: the exotic giant tick Hyalomma marginatum has already succeeded in establishing itself in isolated cases in Austria. Their occurrence should not be underestimated – they can also carry dangerous diseases.
These are diseases “that do not yet exist in Austria,” Reinhold Kerbl, secretary general of the Austrian Association for Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine (ÖGKJ), warned on Monday about the spread of the new tick species.
Crimean-Congo fever soon here too?
The giant tick is the main vector of the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, but can also spread typhus via rickettsiae. Crimean-Congo fever is common in Africa, the Middle East and other Asian countries, as well as in the Balkans. Experts have recently been able to detect the bunyaviruses that cause the disease in ticks in Spain and France, the ÖGKJ reported.
Symptoms of Crimean-Congo fever include high fever, myalgia, dizziness, photophobia, abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting and, in severe cases, bleeding. The mortality rate is between five and thirty percent. In most cases, the infection occurs through a tick bite. However, no infection with bunyaviruses has yet been found in the giant ticks that are sporadically found in Austria.
“We also have to think about this possibility”
Tick-bite fever or typhoid fever caused by rickettsiae is manifested by fever, headache, rash and a small, dying part of the skin, the scab, at the site of the bite. However, infected people do not develop such serious illnesses as with Crimean-Congo fever.
“The risk of being bitten by a giant tick in Austria is still minimal – especially compared to the ‘normal ticks’ that are common here (Common Wood tick, Ixodes ricinus). But climate change may increase the risk and we must also consider this possibility,” says Doctor Kerbl, head of the department of pediatric and adolescent medicine at the LKH Hochsteiermark in Leoben.
Source: Krone
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