Virus Detection and Monitoring of Viral Load in Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus Patients

Roman Wölfel,Patricia A Leman,Stephan Günther,Antoinette A Grobbelaar,Christian Drosten,Roger Hewson,Janusz T Paweska,Nadine Petersen,Anna Papa,Marie-Claude Georges-Courbot

doi:10.3201/eid1307.070068

Abstract

We developed a real-time reverse transcription–-PCR that detected 1,164 copies/mL of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus per milliliter of serum at 95% probability (probit analysis) and was 100% concordant with nested PCR on 63 samples from 31 patients with confirmed infection. Infected patients who died appeared to have higher viral loads; low viral loads correlated with IgG detection.

Highlights

We developed a real-time reverse transcription–PCR that detected 1,164 copies/mL of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus per milliliter of serum at 95% probability and was 100% concordant with nested PCR on 63 samples from 31 patients with confirmed infection
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a tickborne viral zoonosis that occurs widely in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. It is caused by CCHF virus (CCHFV), a segmented, negative-stranded RNA virus belonging to the family Bunyaviridae, genus Nairovirus
The Study Primers and probes were selected on the basis of an alignment of S segment sequences of 61 CCHFV isolates from all known CCHF-endemic regions worldwide [7]

Summary

Introduction

We developed a real-time reverse transcription–PCR that detected 1,164 copies/mL of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus per milliliter of serum at 95% probability (probit analysis) and was 100% concordant with nested PCR on 63 samples from 31 patients with confirmed infection. Diagnostic assays for CCHF include virus culture, antigen-detection enzyme immunoassay (EIA), antibody-detection EIA, and reverse transcription–PCR (RT-PCR) [2]. We describe the first real-time RT-PCR that rapidly and reliably detects the global spectrum of clinically relevant virus strains.

Results

Conclusion