Yellow fever is sometimes also called as American Plague or yellow jack. The disease is an acute viral disease. It leads to hemorrhagic fever mainly in African and South American countries. The name yellow fever is because it leads to the jaundice like symptoms in the affected patients. The effective vaccine against the disease exists.

Yellow fever has been a source of several epidemics, due to which several thousands of people have died in various parts of the world which lead to the understanding of the seriousness of the disease and the fact that the disease is transmitted by the mosquitoes. Now the awareness is increased regarding the disease, still millions of the people die due to the disease worldwide every year, those who are not immunized against the disease. Now a day the disease is usually confined to sporadic outbreaks.

Signs and Symptoms

• Incubation period is of three to five days
• Fever
• Headache
• Slow heartbeat
• Back pain
• Exhaustion
• Due to internal hemorrhage a typical coffee ground" vomiting can occur
• Complications of the disease may include Coma, Delirium and death depending on the severity of the disease

 

Causes

Yellow fever virus is a flavivirus and belongs to the family Flaviviridae it is a positive sense single-stranded RNA virus.

 

Prevention               

• Mosquito control
• Vaccination against the virus is available and is advised. The vaccine is safe and is highly effective in preventing the disease. It provides up to 10 years of effective protection against the virus.
• One should wear mosquito and insect repellant creams before moving out, even insect repelling clothing’s are now a day’s available in the market.

Treatment and Medications

• As no particular treatment for the disease exists so the treatment is mainly supportive.
• Fluid replacement and blood transfusion for the treatment of Hypotension
• Dialysis is prescribed to the patients who develop Acute Renal Failure
• Mortality rate for the disease is high