Flavivirin

Yellow fever is a viral disease that was first described in the mid-sixteenth century in Yucatán, Mexico. It is caused by yellow fever virus, an arbovirus (a virus transmitted by an insect vector) isolated in 1927, simultaneously in Ghana and at the Institut Pasteur de Dakar, Senegal. The disease is endemic in Africa and in Central and South America. The case fatality rate is high, fluctuating between 20 and 60% from one outbreak to the next. There is a safe, effective vaccine which provides long-term protection. The disease is re-emerging in some African and South American countries with poor vaccine coverage.