Congo fever nurse discharged from Spanish hospital
A Spanish nurse who contracted Congo fever while caring for a man who died from the virus, in the first non-imported case reported in Western Europe, was discharged from hospital on Wednesday, officials said.
The unidentified nurse was admitted to the intensive care unit of a Madrid hospital on August 31 where she was treated for the illness, also known as Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, in isolation
The regional government of Madrid said in a statement that she had been discharged and "would not need to be monitored and can lead a normal life".
It said health officials would monitor hospital staff who looked after the patient for 14 days after their last contact with her—a period that corresponds with the typical incubation period of the virus.
The nurse became infected while treating a 62-year-old man who died from the virus on August 25.
He caught the virus after he was bitten by a tick while walking in the countryside in the northwestern Spanish region of Castile and Leon.
Spanish health authorities said this was the first time the disease had been found in Western Europe in someone who had not travelled to an endemic area.
The virus has been found among ticks in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe and southwestern Europe.
Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a viral haemorrhagic fever transmitted by ticks from a range of livestock and domestic animals. It has a fatality rate of 10-40 percent.
Transmission to humans occurs through contact with infected animal blood or ticks. CCHF can be transmitted from one infected human to another by contact with infectious blood or body fluids.
© 2016 AFP
