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Yellow Fever

How Yellow Fever Is Spread, Clinical Course Of Yellow Fever, Diagnosis, TreatmentPrevention

Yellow fever is a severe illness that causes outbreaks of epidemic proportions throughout Africa and tropical America. The first written evidence of such an epidemic dates back to a 1648 outbreak in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Since that time, much has been learned about the interesting transmission patterns of this devastating illness.


A very safe, highly effective yellow fever vaccine exists, with about 95% of vaccine recipients acquiring long-term immunity to the yellow fever flavivirus. Careful measures to decrease mosquito populations in both urban areas and jungle areas in which humans are working, along with programs to vaccinate all people living in such areas, are necessary to avoid massive yellow fever outbreaks.

See also Mosquitoes.


Resources

Books

Andreoli, Thomas E., et al. Cecil Essentials of Medicine. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1993.

Berkow, Robert, and Andrew J. Fletcher. The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy. Rahway, NJ: Merck Research Laboratories, 1992.

Isselbacher, Kurt J., et al. Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. New York: McGraw Hill, 1994.

Kobayashi, G., Patrick R. Murray, Ken Rosenthal, and Michael Pfaller. Medical Microbiology. St. Louis: Mosby, 2003.

Mandell, Douglas, et al. Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1995.


Rosalyn Carson-DeWitt

KEY TERMS

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Degeneration

—Breakdown of tissue.

Faget's sign

—The simultaneous occurrence of a high fever with a slowed heart rate.

Host

—The organism, such as a monkey or human, in which another organism, such as a virus or bacteria, is living.

Vector

—Any agent, living or otherwise, that carries and transmits parasites and diseases.

Additional topics

Science EncyclopediaScience & Philosophy: Well-being to Jan Łukasiewicz Biography