GETTY•EXPRESS Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is spreading across Europe

Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a virus primarily transmitted to people from ticks and animals. While it might not be a commonly-discussed disease, CCHF outbreaks - which causes severe viral haemorrhagic fever outbreaks - have a fatality rate of up to 40 per cent, according to the World Health Organisation. Worryingly the virus is primarily transmitted to people from ticks and livestock animals - but human-to-human transmission can occur after close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected persons. There is no vaccine available for either people or animals. The panic around CCHF is spreading fast after a man died in Spain from the disease.

EXPRESS These are the countries where the virus has been detected

El Espanol, a national newspaper in Spain, reported on the issue again today after the Ministry of Health published a report about the virus. The paper claims the report was triggered by the appearance of ticks "infected with the virus in the province of Cáceres" - a city in western Spain's Extremadura region. Raul, the 62 year-old man who died, contracted the CCHF disease during a walk in the Castilla-Leon region. The death is believed to be the first non-imported case of the disease reported in Western Europe. It is believed the disease came from a tick bite.

GETTY This is a picture of a man suffering with Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever

The Ministry of Health report reads: "Given the repeated appearance of the virus since 2010 in ticks captured in a zone of Extremadura, and the detection in September 2016 of a human case infected after exposure to a tick and a second case of infection in a nurse after close contact with the previous case in Madrid, it is relevant to update the risk assessment of this disease in our country after the one held in 2011." The paper highlights the Ministry of Health stressed that "the detection of a human case by nosocomial transmission highlights the importance of early detection and the need to implement appropriate prevention and control measures in case of suspecting hemorrhagic fever." Spanish health authorities are no longer ruling out more indigenous cases of CCHF. CCHF is endemic in Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East and Asian countries south of the 50th parallel north – the geographical limit of the principal tick vector.

GETTY The Ministry of Health in Spain has published a report on the disease - which is spread by ticks

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