31 MAY 1998. AMAZON: DISEASE
(YELLOW FEVER) "Recently, several cases of yellow fever have been reported
in Amazonian Brazil, and one in French Guiana. Now, ProMED-mail has heard
of suspected cases in Suriname, the country bordered by French Guiana and
Guyana. If yellow fever is indeed spreading, we may expect to see cases
in Guyana also, and in neighboring areas of Venezuela, from which infected
mosquitoes could carry it to Trinidad, as it has in the past, and threaten
the Caribbean, where the urban yellow fever mosquito, _Aedes aegypti_,
is widespread. So far the cases are reported from jungle areas in the interior,
with no urban cases. But medical authorities in the towns of Guyana, French
Guiana & Suriname should be looking for cases of clinical hepatitis
with an eye to the possibility that they might in fact be yellow fever;
medical laboratories in the capitals should make sure they can diagnose
the disease rapidly; and health authorities should seriously consider the
need to vaccinate in the towns and capitals."-- Jack Woodall woodall@wadsworth.org
VIA ProMED http://www.healthnet.org/programs/promed.html.
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1997 El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO 97-98)