Yellow Fever Essay, Research Paper

Yellow fever is a disease that is a insect born tropical disease. Yellow disease is an arbovirus called Flaviviridae, which is a small RNA virus which is transmitted by mosquitoes. The mosquitoes that can transmit the disease are the Aedes aegypti, Aedes africanus, and Haemagogus. Central America, the northern half of South America and Central Africa are main targets of Yellow fever.(askjeeves.com)

In the late 1800 s, yellow fever was huge in the Caribbean s and the United States needed to find a way to control it because they needed to build the Panama Canal. In 1900, a group lead Walter Reed proved an idea by C. J. Finley which was that yellow fever was a mosquito born infection. The army controlled the disease in the Panama Canal Zone. Now with a vaccine and strict quarantine measures for anything coming from any known or suspected yellow fever areas is also helping the control of the disease.(healthlinkusa.com)

There are three types of cycles for yellow fever: sylvatic, intermediate and urban. The three cycles have been seen in Africa but not in South America. Sylvatic occurs in the rainforest. The yellow fever is passed to monkeys by mosquitoes. Other mosquitoes bite the monkey which in return bite any human in the jungle. Most humans with this type are men working in the forest. The second type is intermediate which is found in the savannah. This is the most common type of outbreak in the past couple of years. Few people die from the infection. The last cycle is the urban cycle. Huge outbreaks occur when humans with the virus pass them on into areas with a lot of people. In this cycle the mosquito goes from person to person there are no monkeys involved like in the other two. They tend to spread and cover a very wide area. (www.who.int)

The symptoms for yellow fever are fever, headache, muscle aches or myalgia, vomiting, red eyes, jaundice, unusual bleeding, bloody vomiting, delirium, seizures and coma. Signs that the person maybe affected by Yellow fever could be dehydration, hypo tension or low blood pressure and renal failure. The tests they could do to check and see if the person has yellow fever are CBC, which is to check to see if you have a decreased amount of white blood count, see if you have increased bilirubin or hyperbilirubinemia, see if you have protein in your urine, see if your liver enzymes are elevated and also by using serological testing which shows if there is any presence of yellow fever virus in the body already.(healthlinkusa.com)

The acute form of the disease causes headache, muscle aches, fever, loss of appetite and vomiting. The infected person may get a red tongue, a red face or red eyes. By the fifth day jaundice which is yellowing of the skin(hence the name of the virus), stomach pains and bleeding which may come up as vomit starts. Delirium and seizures develop which is followed by a coma. Death will come to the infected person within a week of the symptoms which means you need to be treated right when you see some of the signs.(askjeeves.com)

There is no specific treatment just for yellow fever. Right now they give you IV treatment to treat dehydration, low blood pressure and hypoglycemia or low blood sugar. Antacids and histamine blockers can be prescribed to protect the stomach from any bleeding. Some other medications can be used to try to control the fever. They might also have to use dialysis if there is any kidney failure. They also might have to transfuse fresh blood or plasma transfusion because they need to control bleeding disorders. Yellow fever is a very nasty illness without any specific treatment the death rate remains very high even with the care we use as of now.(healthlinkusa.com)

The only way to prevent yellow fever is by using vaccination. We can use mosquito repellents and screening your house but that will decrease exposure risk but it will not stop it. The only problem with using insecticides is that the mosquitoes are becoming very resistant to them and they are becoming a lot stronger.(www.who.int)

Yellow fever is definitely a epidemic which extends into subtropical and temperate regions. That is why South America and Africa are very high targets for yellow fever. In Africa and South America there are a lot of cases for it and there might be even more but we just do not know about it because they are not getting reported.(askjeeves.com)

The way the disease gets from one person to another is by mosquito. If a mosquito bites a human with the disease, it will take the blood of a contaminated person. When the mosquito bites another person with out the virus then it will swap blood with him. the mosquito does not have much of the blood left from the sick person but enough to pass the virus on. This is a way how many viruses are passed on because it is not easy to stop mosquitoes. It is very hard to control them and make sure they do not bite them. The only thing people can do is put on mosquito repellent on or not go outside but that would just be crazy.(healthlinkusa.com)

The places where Yellow fever is shown is South America or Africa. For people in South America infections are most seen with people who work in agriculture or in the forest. The reason is because they are always outside in the hot weather where mosquitoes can survive. In Africa, there are three regions where there are a lot of cases of yellow fever. The biggest place where it is seen is in West and Central Africa. Here in this part of Africa is the savanna zone mostly during the rainy seasons of Africa. Outbreaks also happen in villages in Africa. Everybody is so close to each other and it is very disgusting there because they are not as complex as we are. The final place is just like in South America and that is the jungle regions. The reason why these places have so many outbreaks is because you cannot stop them at all. The villages have very poor living conditions so if one person gets it then many people will also because they have nothing to stop it. The countries are not rich enough and they do not have the money to spend on vaccines for everyone. so many people get this disease that they cannot control it because of the cash problem. Many countries cannot not stop outbreaks because of the same thing, they do not want to spend there money on vaccines because too many people are infected. The big countries do not want to help because they do not want to waste their money also because they know it will come back and more people will die.(www.who.int)

In Africa, 33 countries and a combined population of 468 million people have a good chance to get yellow fever. Around 200,000 cases of yellow fever and around 30,000 deaths are estimated per year. There are so many times that yellow fever is not reported that so many more lives are taken. Asia is one region where not many cases are reported because they do not get the virus for some odd reason. Asia should be one place with many cases be cause there are many mosquitoes and primates present in Asia.