Brings deadly virus

“Alarming”: Giant tick gains a foothold here too

Climate change is making it possible: the exotic giant tick Hyalomma marginatum has already managed to settle in Austria in isolated cases. Its presence should not be underestimated - for example, it can also bring dangerous diseases with it.

These are diseases "that do not yet exist in Austria", warned Reinhold Kerbl, Secretary General of the Austrian Society for Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine (ÖGKJ), on Monday about the spread of this new tick species.

Crimean-Congofever soon here too?
The giant tick is the main carrier of the hemorrhagic Crimean-Congo fever virus, but can also spread spotted fever caused by rickettsia. Crimean-Congo fever usually occurs in Africa, the Middle East and other Asian countries as well as in the Balkans. However, experts were recently able to detect the bunya viruses that cause the disease in ticks in Spain and France, the ÖGKJ reported.

Symptoms of Crimean-Congo fever include high fever, muscle pain, dizziness, photophobia, abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting and, in severe cases, bleeding. The mortality rate is between five and 30 percent. In most cases, infection occurs through a tick bite. However, the occasional giant ticks found in Austria have not yet been found to be infected with bunya viruses.

"We must also think about this possibility"
 Tick-bite fever or spotted fever caused by rickettsia is characterized by fever, headache, rash and a small area of skin, the eschar, that dies off at the site of the bite. However, infected people do not develop as severe a course of the disease as with Crimean-Congo fever.

"The risk of being bitten by a giant tick in Austria is still minimal - especially in comparison to the 'normal ticks' (common wood tick, Ixodes ricinus) that are widespread here. But with climate change, the risk may increase and we must also consider this possibility," says Kerbl, who heads the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at Hochsteiermark Regional Hospital in Leoben.