A deadly virus is highly likely to be heading to the UK thanks to climate change, according to scientists. The UK Government has been warned about Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF), which has a mortality rate of up to 40% and is spread by ticks or animal tissue.
CCHF is on the World Health Organisation’s list of ‘priority’ diseases, and it's found in eastern Europe and now France. Other diseases the Uk has been warned to look out for include deadly Rift Valley fever, Zika, and ‘breakbone’ fever.
Warmer weather will allow the disease to spread to the UK, according to the WHO.
There is concern that infections may not be picked up by doctors in the NHS, as previously they hadn't been expected, the UK's Science, Innovation and Technology Committee was told.
Professor Bryan Charleston, director of the Pirbright Institute, which studies infectious diseases in animals, said there was a “slow march north” of diseases.
He stated: “There are broadly two (points), one is that the insect vectors will move, greatly increasing the range of their habitat because of climate change and we are seeing that.
“From a European perspective, the insects are spreading more north and then the viruses that they carry tend to follow.
“Alternatively there are examples like blue tongue virus which we had in 2007 where the virus is brought in by some other route and the vectors we have are competent for those viruses.
“So these two things we have to understand, the spread and the increased risk of these viral infections because of the slow march north of the vectors.”
Looking as well at the risk to animals, he said: "One of the viruses we do not want in the country is African horse sickness, it’s 80% mortality that could be spread by the midge that we have in the UK. This the awareness we need to have in terms of the risk assessment.”
And Prof James Wood, head of veterinary medicine at Cambridge University, told MPs that it was “highly likely” that CCHF would reach the UK at some point but it is difficult to know which viruses will arrive and when.
"We don't know what is going to arrive until it does," he stated.
“Some tick-borne infections, so Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, are highly likely to spread in the UK through our ticks at some point,” he said.
Professor Sir Peter Horby, director of the Pandemic Sciences Institute at Oxford University also said that climate change was mixing up the map of where to find certain illnesses.
'Dengue which is classically a South American, South East Asian disease and is hyperendemic in those countries [has] spread North, you're now seeing transmission in the Mediterranean,' he said.
This article originally stated that CCHF kills almost every second. This statistic was incorrect and has been removed. We apologise for the error
