Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever; Modern Approaches to Diagnostics, Surveillance, Prevention, Therapy and Preparedness.

Over the last years, large outbreaks of Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) in several European countries and neighbouring areas are on the rise. This disease poses a great threat to public health due to its high mortality rate, modes of transmission and geographical distribution. Climate changes and observation of the CCHFV vector in central Europe alarm the European community as we cannot exclude that future outbreaks will take place in non-endemic area of Europe. To date, there is no vaccine available and no selective antiviral drug for the management of the disease. The general knowledge of migration, epidemiology, re-assortment and recombination of the virus is very limited. To fill these gaps, the CCH Fever project proposes to create a multidisciplinary collaborative research environment by bringing together selected competitive advantages such as: operative capacity with appropriate high security research facilities, reference centres and clinical samples from endemic areas and an international network of experienced researchers.

This multidisciplinary research consortium will facilitate the progress in several key research areas of the field. This program will mainly focus on (i) developing sensitive and bio-safe state-of-art diagnostic tools for CCHFV, (ii) gathering the forces and resources in Europe to build a Biobank of clinical samples, (iii) building a comprehensive database consisting in clinical, laboratory and surveillance data, (iv) taking advantage of unique and state-of art tools to progress towards vaccine candidates and specific anti-virals against this bio-threat and (v) disseminating the appropriate knowledge to the health care workers in endemic regions and contributing to capacity building. These achievements will provide tools for local and European public health authorities to prevent or counter future outbreaks and monitor the spread of the disease thanks to the established novel and unique tools and resources