Objectives:

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is seen in our country with fatality rate of 5% since 2002. It was aimed to reveal if there were any differences responsible from fatalities in M segments of CCHF viruses detected in patients’ sera in Tokat province, reporting the most of the cases in Turkey.

Materials and Methods:

Nineteen patients, applying to hospital whom, nine were later ex and 10 were discharged with cure, from the same regions of Tokat districts between March to August 2014, which is the period of most number of CCHFV cases reported, were included. Viral RNA was isolated, M segment region was amplified and sequence analysis was performed.

Results:

Obtained M segment nucleotide sequences were found to be in Europe clade having close relation with Russian and Kosovo strains on the same branches of the phylogenetic tree. Seven out of 19 viruses were in a different group because they had R1532K mutation like Russian and Kosovo strains and L1601F mutation which was not found to exist in the genotypes reported from Turkey, before.

Conclusion:

In this study, Turkey/Almus01/2014 M segment analysis was found identical in a couple living in Almus, whom one of them had died while one was discharged from hospital with cure, suggesting individual factors were also responsible from fatality, not only viral strain. On certain periods although suspicion of high mortality rate occurs, at the end of each disease season, fatality stays on the same rate, suggesting there are not any viral mutations increasing fatality. Data on this study support this hypothesis.

Keywords: CCHFV, Tokat, Sequence Analysis