When it comes to the countless hours someone has put into research to benefit the families that we love we as professionals will most commonly think of deadly diseases that have either been eliminated or there is a vaccine available to the public. Yellow fever is a viral disease spread between humans as well as between certain other primates and humans by the bite of infected mosquitoes. The term yellow fever comes from the jaundice that takes over the entire body of an infected person. The disease cannot be transmitted from human to human and it is mainly passed through and area where there are high level of infected mosquitoes. In history several adults and children have been infected with yellow fever and died before a vaccination was discovered.
The first outbreaks were documented in Charleston, Virgina and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1699. A 1793 outbreak in Philadelphia killed about 10% of the city's population. Once a person was infected the virus, within 3-4 days it was possible for that person to recover. In some circumstances those who contracted the virus went into a second phase of illness after recovery and died. Vaccines are now available and widely used that can protect a person as soon as one week after injection and protect for the next 30 years. Sadly however, countries in Latin America and Africa still suffer with this disease and it claims the lives of 200,000 people per year.
www.hisotryofvaccines.org/content/articles/yellowfever
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