Yellow fever

Yellow fever is an acute viral haemorrhagic disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes. The illness can cause bleeding problems. It is called yellow because it makes the skin and the eyes yellow in color, like jaundice.

There is a vaccine which can stop the disease, but many people in Africa and South America are not vaccinated against it. The World Health Organization say that 200,000 people are made ill with yellow fever every year, and that 30,000 people die from it.

Yellow fever peaked in 1842, killing hundreds of people. There was an outbreak in Philadelphia in 1793.

Yellow fever is spread through the bite of an infected mosquito. The name of the mosquito which commonly carries the virus is Aedes Aegypti. The female carries the disease. The yellow fever originated in Central Africa.

Yellow Fever Media

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  The yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti, taking a bloodmeal.

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  Adults of the yellow fever mosquito A. aegypti: The male is on the left, females are on the right. Only the female mosquito bites humans to transmit the disease.

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  A photograph of a certificate of vaccination as required to prove that someone has been vaccinated against yellow fever

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  Information campaign for prevention of dengue and yellow fever in Paraguay

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  Areas with risk of yellow fever in Africa (2017)

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  Areas with risk of yellow fever in South America (2018)

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  Sugar curing house, 1762. Sugar pots and jars on sugar plantation served as breeding place for larvae of A. aegypti, the vector of yellow fever. Image Reference affinerie_des_sucres, as shown on www.slaveryimages.org, compiled by Jerome Handler and Michael Tuite, and sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library."

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  Headstones of people who died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1878 can be found in New Orleans' cemeteries

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  Commodore James Biddle to Sec Nav dtd 3 August 1822 reporting 76 deaths aboard the USS Macedonian of yellow fever. Enclosure first page list of dead.