The Bulgarian vaccine Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus strain

Abstract

The Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) is a 3-segmented RNA virus, which causes disease with a high fatality rate in humans. An inactivated suckling mouse brain-derived vaccine is used in Bulgaria for protection against CCHF. Strain V42/81 is currently used for the vaccine preparation. As the M-RNA segment plays a major role in the immune response, the full-length M segment sequence of the V42/81 strain was characterized. A great genetic diversity was observed among CCHFV strains. In order to gain an insight into the topology of the strain in the CCHFV phylogenetic trees, the full-length S and partial L segments were additionally sequenced and analyzed.

Keywords::

• Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus
• Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever
• vaccine
• Bulgaria

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by RiViGene (Contract No. SSPE-CT-2005-022639).

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.