Congo-Crimean haemorrhagic fever in South Africa. Report of a fatal case in the Transvaal.

A 13-year-old boy, after having spent a week at a camp in a nature reserve in the western Transvaal, developed an acute illness of sudden onset characterized by chills, severe headache, muscle pains and high fever. On the 3rd day he developed a haemorrhagic state with profuse bleeding from the gastro-intestinal tract and other mucous membranes and petechial haemorrhages into the skin, from which he died on the 6th day after onset of the illness. A tick, identified as a species of Hyalomma, was found attached to his scalp. The provisional clinical diagnosis of Congo virus fever was confirmed in the laboratory by the isolation of the virus in newborn mice inoculated with the patient's blood. This is the first incrimination of Congo virus as the cause of a fatal case of haemorrhagic fever in South Africa, although it is known to occur in several countries in the tropical region of Africa and in south-eastern Europe and Asia.