A souvenir to avoid: Yellow Fever virus Planning a nice, relaxing rainforest excursion in Africa or South America? Be sure to obtain the appropriate travel vaccines to avoid receiving a nasty souvenir: Yellow Fever Virus.
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic fever that results due to the yellow fever virus. The enveloped virus is of the Flavivirus genus, and part of the Flaviviridae family. Since the middle of the 17th century to the early 1900s, the virus has caused epidemics in Africa, the Americas, and certain regions of Europe (1). Currently, yellow fever virus is still a persistent health concern, as there are approximately 200 000 cases occurring globally each year, and amount to an estimated 30 000 deaths, with the majority occurring in Africa. It is endemic in Africa and South America, particularly in the tropical regions. Yellow fever virus has a high fatality rate, as up half of the patients who are severely affected die. Currently, there are no specific treatments for it (2).
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In Africa and Latin America, there are three epidemiologic transmission cycles: urban, jungle, and rural. In the urban cycle, Aedes aegypti mosquitoes cause the transmission between humans. The jungle cycle occurs mainly in both Africa and South America, and is the transmission between monkeys by species such as the Aedes, Sabethes and Haemagogus genera in Latin America. The last cycle is the rural cycle, which occurs predominantly in small African communities located close to forests