Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus Clade IV (Asia 1) in Ticks of Western Iran.
Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever virus (CCHFV) is transmitted through the bite of an infected tick, or by direct contact with CCHFV-infected patients' blood or the products of infected livestock. In 2012, ticks were collected in eight regions of Lorestan Province, Iran. In total, 434 ticks were collected. Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction was used for the detection of CCHFV RNA. Of 434 ticks, 419 (96.6%) ticks were from the family Ixodidae (hard ticks) and 15 (3.5%) ticks were from the family Argasidae (soft ticks). The presence of CCHFV RNA was detected in 29 (6.7%) of 434 ticks. The infected tick species include Hyalomma asiaticum (n = 7, 7.4%), Hyalomma anatolicum (n = 12, 13.2%), Hyalomma marginatum (n = 1, 16.7%), and Rhipicephalus sanguineus (n = 9, 4.3%). These empirical data demonstrated that the majority of CCHFV-positive ticks belonged to the Ixodidae. None of the Argasidae and Haemaphysalis sulcata species was infected with CCHFV. The phylogenetic analyses of the tick-derived CCHFV strains revealed that all 29 viral strains fell in clade IV (Asia 1). The most abundant species of tick collected in this study was R. sanguineus followed by different species of Hyalomma. Given the infection rate among collected ticks, H. marginatum was the most abundant infected tick species (16.7%) followed by H. anatolicum (13.2%), H. asiaticum (7.4%), and R. sanguineus (4.3%).
Department of Parasitology, School of Medicine, Lorestan University of Medical sciences, Khorramabad, Iran. These authors contributed equally to this work.
Mohammad Hassan
MH
Kayedi
Arboviruses and Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers Laboratory (National Reference Laboratory), Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran. sadeghchinikar@yahoo.com.
Sadegh
S
Chinikar
Department of Epidemiology, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran.
Ehsan
E
Mostafavi
Arboviruses and Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers Laboratory (National Reference Laboratory), Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran.
Sahar
S
Khakifirouz
Arboviruses and Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers Laboratory (National Reference Laboratory), Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran.
Tahmineh
T
Jalali
Department of Plant Protection, Gilan University, Rasht, Iran.
Asadolah
A
Hosseini-Chegeni
Department of Public Health, Zahedan University of Medical Science, Zahedan, Iran.
Ali
A
Naghizadeh
Centre for Biological Threats and Special Pathogens, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany.
Matthias
M
Niedrig
Wildlife Zoonoses & Vector-Borne Diseases Research Group, Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), Surrey, UK. National Consortium for Zoonosis Research, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK. Department of Clinical Infection, Microbiology and Immunology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
Anthony R
AR
Fooks
These authors contributed equally to this work. WHO Collaborating Centre for Arbovirus and Haemorrhagic Fever Reference and Research, Department of Virology, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany.
Nariman
N
Shahhosseini
D000818:Animals; D026864:Argas / Q000821:virology*; D005260:Female; D003225:Hemorrhagic Fever Virus, Crimean-Congo / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D007492:Iran; D026863:Ixodidae / Q000821:virology*; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D058974:Phylogeography; D012621:Seasons; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism
D014764:Viral Proteins
Argasidae; Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic fever virus; Ixodidae; tick