Is yellow fever still a deadly disease?
Yellow fever is a serious, often fatal, viral illness carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which infects humans through its bite. Before a vaccine against yellow fever was developed, epidemics (widespread outbreaks) of “the yellow plague” (called yellow because jaundice causes the victim’s skin to turn yellow) cost thousands of lives in North and South America. From 1668 to 1893, 531 yellow fever epidemics ravaged U.S. cities, disrupting commerce and wiping out entire neighborhoods in a matter of weeks. Among the worst epidemics was the case of New Orleans in 1853. That summer 40,000 people fell ill and 11,000 died. In 1881 Cuban physician Carlos Finlay (1833–1915) wrote a paper in which he suggested that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes. Nine years later U.S. Army surgeon Walter Reed (1851–1902) investigated the yellow fever cases of American…
