Health authorities are urging people to get vaccinated before travelling to risk areas for Easter.
There's a yellow fever outbreak in Colombia which has killed 34 people so far.
A yellow fever vaccine is available, but people need to actually get it for it to do any good.
Colombia has declared a nationwide health emergency after at least 34 people died of yellow fever, according to official figures. Yellow fever is caused by a virus transmitted to humans by infected mosquitoes. It can be prevented by a vaccine which in most cases provides lifelong protection. The government has urged people to get vaccinated ahead of the Easter weekend, a time when many Colombians travel to warmer areas where the mosquitos that spread the disease are more prevalent. Health Minister Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo said those going to high-risk areas would be required to show proof of vaccination. The health minister said that there had been 74 confirmed cases of yellow fever in Colombia so far during this outbreak and urged people to get the vaccine, which in Colombia is free of charge.
It's easy to prevent but a tricky disease to diagnose.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), most people recover after the first phase of infection which usually involves fever, muscle and back pain, headache, shivers, loss of appetite, and nausea or vomiting. But the WHO warns that about 15% of people face a second, more serious phase involving high fever, jaundice, bleeding and deteriorating kidney function. Half of those who enter this "more toxic" phase usually die within 10 to 14 days, WHO figures suggest.
That can't be good.
Thanks to vaccine hesitancy encouraged by MAGA morons like RFK Jr., fewer Americans are likely to get vaccinated when necessary. And because of climate change, mosquitos carrying the yellow fever virus may find the climate up here more hospitable.
Yellow fever has a long history in the US dating back to the colonial era.
History of Yellow Fever in the U.S.
It was 1793 in Philadelphia and the summer was proving to be one of the hottest on record. A blanket of humidity covered the city, fed by putrid swamps that served as breeding grounds for the Aedes aegypti mosquito. While smaller outbreaks of yellow fever had occurred in the U.S. since 1693, this year would prove to be different. The capital city would be decimated. In just a matter of months, 10% of Philadelphia’s population was dead and a greater proportion had fled the city in fear for their lives.
Interestingly, the yellow fever virus may have been brought to the New World on slave ships.
Yellow fever is caused by a virus in the family Flaviviridae, and it is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. The yellow fever virus most likely originated in Africa and arrived in the Western Hemisphere in the 1600s as a result of slave trade. The mosquito vector was likely introduced to the U.S. via water barrels on trade ships arriving from countries with endemic yellow fever. The virus followed when slaves from areas with endemic disease arrived. The hungry mosquitos then spread the virus from infected to uninfected in the New World.
You probably won't find that factoid in MAGA-censored history books.
Yellow fever outbreaks have happened as far north as Boston (1798). The absolute worst was centered around Memphis in 1878.
1878 Epidemic
While we shouldn't panic because of the epidemic in Colombia, we do need to be more vigilant on a state and local level because the anti-science Trump-Musk régime is drastically cutting funding for fighting pandemics and public health in general.