Yellow Fever in American continent

Yellow fever was an unknown disease until the discovery of the Americas. Yellow fever virus originated in Africa and was brought to the western hemisphere during the slave trade era with the first epidemic was reported in the American continent. It is possible to characterize with greater certainty the infection by yellow fever, occurred in the Yucatán peninsula in 1648.

The first accurate description of yellow fever seems to be the one written in the year 1495, after the battle known as Vega Real or Santo Cerro, fought by Columbus in Hispaniola against the Indians.

Yellow fever appeared in New York in 1668, in Boston in 1691, in Philadelphia in 1669 and in Charleston in 1699. In the US, an epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793 decimated about 10% of the population.

In 1848 Josiah Clark Nott (1804-1973) was the first to suggest that yellow fever was spread by mosquitos, but in 1881, Cuban epidemiologist Carlos Finlay significantly advanced the research when he suggested that there was an association of the disease transmission with mosquito bites.

In 1900, physician Walter Reed proved this association and Reed's work led a campaign in Havana against the urban mosquito vector, eliminating the disease in 1902.
Yellow Fever in American continent