Yellow fever

Yellow fever: An acute systemic (bodywide) viral illness with in severe cases a high fever, bleeding into the skin and death of cells (necrosis) in kidney and liver, the liver damage causing intense jaundice (yellowing). Yellow fever once ravaged port cities in the U.S. including Philadelphia and New York. It occurs in tropical areas of Africa and the Americas. The mosquito vector (carrier) was found through the research of the Cuban physician Carlos Juan Finlay and the American army doctor Walter Reed. The mosquito injects a virus (a single-stranded RNA virus belonging to the flavivirus group) that causes yellow fever.