The Black Death and Other Pandemics
Scott M. Jackson in Skin Disease and the History of Dermatology, 2023
The next epidemic disease to discuss as it relates to the skin is yellow fever, but the only cutaneous symptom of this disease is jaundice, the yellowing of the skin caused by liver damage that occurs in 15 percent of cases. Yellow fever is a typically short-lived viral disease that is transmitted by the bite of a mosquito (Aedes aegypti) infected with an RNA flavivirus. The classic symptoms of yellow fever are fever, nausea, back pain, and headache, all of which improve in just a few days. For the unlucky ones who get liver damage, the yellowing of the skin (jaundice) typically starts at the end of the first week, when the fever breaks and the patient starts to improve symptomatically. Around 30 percent of persons with jaundice die from liver failure.106 It is a gruesome way to go, as the liver failure causes impaired coagulation, and the infected vomit blood and bleed from every orifice.
Health promotion and vector-borne disease outbreaks
Glenn Laverack in Health Promotion in Disease Outbreaks and Health Emergencies, 2017
Yellow fever is an acute viral haemorrhagic disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes belonging to the Aedes and Haemogogus genera and that live in different habitats; some breed around houses (domestic), others in the jungle (wild) and some in both habitats (semi-domestic). The symptoms of yellow fever include headache, jaundice, muscle pain, fever, nausea, vomiting and fatigue. A small proportion of patients who contract the virus develop severe symptoms, and approximately one-half of those die within 7 to 10 days. Yellow fever is difficult to diagnose, especially during its early stages, and can be confused with malaria, leptospirosis, viral hepatitis and other haemorrhagic fevers such as dengue. The virus remains endemic in 47 countries in Africa and 13 in Central and South America. Outbreaks of yellow fever occur when infected people introduce the virus into heavily populated areas with a high vector density and where most people have no access to vaccination. In these conditions, infected mosquitoes can quickly transmit the yellow fever virus throughout the whole population (World Health Organization 2016e).
The Americanization of Old World medicine
Lois N. Magner, Oliver J. Kim in A History of Medicine, 2017
An attack of yellow fever begins with fever, chills, headache, severe pains in the back and limbs, sore throat, nausea, and vomiting. Experienced physicians might detect diagnostic clues during the early stages of the disease, but mild cases are easily misdiagnosed as influenza, malaria, or other febrile illnesses. Characteristic symptoms in severe cases include jaundice, delirium, and the terrifying “black vomit,” which is caused by hemorrhaging in the stomach. Damage to the heart, kidneys, and liver can lead to death.
Dengue Maculopathy Associated with Choroidopathy and Pseudohypopyon: A Case Series
Published in Ocular Immunology and Inflammation, 2018
Christina W. K. Ng, P. Y. Tai, Shelina Oli Mohamed
Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral disease. Dengue virus is a Flaviviridae of four serotypes (DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3, and DEN-4) transmitted by infected female mosquitoes Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. The mosquitoes also transmit yellow fever, chikungunya, and Zika infection. Dengue is found in tropical and subtropical climates worldwide, mostly in urban and semi-urban areas. It has rapidly spread in recent years and is now endemic in more than 100 countries in regions of the Americas, South-East Asia, Western Pacific, Africa, and the Eastern Mediterranean.1 The first three regions are the most seriously affected. A recent multinational study estimated there to be 390 million dengue infections per year, of which 96 million manifest clinically.2 In Malaysia, since the year 2000, the incidence of dengue infection increased from 32 cases per 100 000 population to 361 cases per 100 000 population in 2014.3
Vogt–Koyanagi–Harada-like Disease following Yellow Fever Vaccination
Published in Ocular Immunology and Inflammation, 2021
Wesley R. Campos, Sarah P. F. Cenachi, Matheus Schmidt Soares, Priscila Freitas Gonçalves, Daniel V. Vasconcelos-Santos
Magnetic resonance imaging of the head and chest X-ray were unremarkable. Tuberculin skin test, as well as serological tests for hepatitis B and C, herpes simplex virus, human T-lymphotropic virus, HIV, and syphilis (venereal diseases research laboratory and fluorescent treponemal antibody absorption tests), was negative. Positive results were only for anti-cytomegalovirus and anti-varicella zoster virus IgG antibodies, and not IgM, in the serum. Results of other investigations were unremarkable, including full blood count, C-reactive protein, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, serum rheumatoid factor, angiotensin-converting enzyme, antinuclear antibodies, and antineutrophilic cytoplasmic antibodies (p- and c-antineutrophilic cytoplasmic antibodies). Lumbar puncture was performed and disclosed mild cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pleocytosis (cells/mm3, with predominance of neutrophilic granulocytes −60%) and increased protein level (55 mg%). RNA of yellow fever virus was not found in serum or CSF by reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, and no pathogens were detected in cerebrospinal fluid culture.
Understanding modern-day vaccines: what you need to know
Published in Annals of Medicine, 2018
Volker Vetter, Gülhan Denizer, Leonard R. Friedland, Jyothsna Krishnan, Marla Shapiro
Many of the first vaccines that were produced consisted of live attenuated vaccines, such as rabies, smallpox, tuberculosis, yellow fever and OPV, some of which are still in use. A successful example is the yellow fever vaccine YF-17D. It was developed in the 1930s by attenuating a yellow fever virus strain by more than 200 serial passages through monkeys and cultures of mouse and chicken embryonic tissues [13]. All currently-used yellow fever vaccines derive from this attenuated strain [13]. In addition, YF-17D has been used to produce vaccines against two closely related viruses, Japanese encephalitis (IMOJEV, Sanofi Pasteur) and dengue (Dengvaxia, Sanofi Pasteur), by replacing the genes encoding the antigenic proteins by their equivalents [14,15].