Today as I was scanning the World Health Organization 's website page Disease Outbreak News, I came across a new case of a disease called yellow fever that occurred in Kenya. From what I know about yellow fever is that it is a zoonotic disease transmitted by mosquitoes. The jist of it is the fact that it originates in animals and that is can be transmitted to humans through mosquito bites. Interested in the topic I decided to pursue it further and check the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website about yellow fever. Interestingly enough, yellow fever can be completely prevented. The CDC’s page on yellow fever states there is a vaccine that contains live virus as well as another page all about mosquito prevention. It makes you …show more content…
This virus is very sneaky. The CDC’s page goes onto describe how the virus can show no symptoms or have mild symptoms. I feel like this can be easily overlooked as yellow fever since it shares the same onset symptoms as malaria such as fever, chills, headaches, body aches, nausea, vomiting, and fatigue. At this point, I really don’t understand why someone wouldn’t get vaccinated, I would most definitely NOT want to experience any of those symptoms, let alone the more severe ones. It gets worse, the CDC’s page continues to describe that around 15% of the people infected can develop severe symptoms like high fever, jaundice, bleeding, shock and eventual organ failure. It proceeded to add on that from 20-50% of the people who develop the severe symptoms die. Again, the vaccine is starting to look really good.
On the bright side, if there is any at this point it says it can get better and you can make a full recovery. Though my first initial thought about that makes me think of is Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The iconic scene where they go to ask to burn the witch and one of the mob members says he was turned into a newt, than with a long pause proceeded to state, “well it got better.” I don’t really see anything about yellow fever getting better though considering the symptoms can last for months after the initial