"If you get yellow fever today your chances of survival are probably not much different than they were in the 1700s or the 1800. It's still going to be 1 out of every 5 or so who are going to die. There is no treatment, you can prevent it but you can't treat yellow fever." -- Jim Writer, author, Yellow Jack: How Yellow Fever Ravaged America and Walter Reed Discovered Its Deadly Scourge

There is no cure for yellow fever.

Before the transmission of yellow fever was understood, yellow fever was thought to be airborne or spread through infected clothing. Urban areas burned tar, blanketing cities in choking smoke, in an effort to purify the air. Infected victims were also subject to strict quarantines in an effort to stop the spread of the disease. Quarantine and isolation, combined with choking smoke, reduced outbreak sites to virtual ghost towns.

Once mosquitoes were known to transmit the virus, public health officials targeted the insects in their preventive measures. A 1905 yellow fever outbreak in New Orleans was the first large scale test of mosquito control as a means of thwarting yellow fever. Workmen covered cisterns with screens and treated standing water with kerosene. Informed residents burned an estimated three hundred tons of sulphur to fumigate their premises. That year 452 victims died from yellow fever, but the further spread was prevented and future outbreaks did not occur.

In the 1930s, French and American scientists independently developed vaccines against yellow fever. The vaccines are not entirely without risk and are only administered to individuals living or traveling through areas known to be infected with yellow fever.

Vaccination, mosquito control and surveillance for outbreak in high risk areas remain the most effective means of controlling yellow fever.

Quarantine patient

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