Warmer temperatures are transforming Europe into the perfect habitat for ticks carrying CCHF, a deadly virus which in the worst cases results in death.

A deadly disease spread by ticks and usually found in the Balkans, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East could soon spread across Europe as climate change pushes the insects to move up through the continent, according to scientists.

Experts have been ringing alarm bells over the potential spread of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, or CCHF, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has listed among its 9 “priority diseases”.

The list contains the diseases which the organisation thinks are the biggest threats to public health.

Scientists’ warnings don’t refer to a hypothetical future, but to something that’s already happening in Europe, with Spain having already reported a case of the deadly disease last year.

The country actually detected its first CCHF cases in 2011 and 2016. In 2016, a man died after being diagnosed with the disease following a tick bite in Spain.

In an interview with Modern Diplomacy in April, Ali Mirazimi, a virologist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said that the ticks carrying the virus were “moving up through Europe due to climate change, with longer and drier summers”.

CCHF has recently been detected in Iraq and Namibia, while in Pakistan, two people have reportedly died from the disease. Iraq suffered an explosion of CCHF cases last year, with a total of 212 recorded incidents between January 1 and May 22.%20are%20laboratory%20confirmed.) This year, there’s been an estimated 100 cases already, with 13 deaths

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