The American Plague - Molly Caldwell Crosby [108]
In the fall of 1941, the yellow fever vaccine was given to all troops departing for the tropics, and by 1942 seven million doses had been issued by the International Health Division to the U.S. Army, Navy and the British fighting in Africa. But, complications began to arise—infectious hepatitis was reported among soldiers. At first, it was sporadic; then, it became epidemic. The soldiers seemed jaundiced, complained of headaches, nausea and dizziness. There were a few fatalities. It did not take long for the blame to fall on the new yellow fever vaccine—the blood that fed the virus in the vaccine had been taken from several hundred volunteers. A few of those—maybe 2 percent—reported a history of jaundice. Their blood had been pooled, and roughly 400,000 doses of the vaccine had been tainted. It became known as “Rockefeller disease” and “serum hepatitis.”
In the end, there were close to 50,000 cases and 84 deaths. But there was not a single yellow fever case in an American soldier. Dr. Wilbur Sawyer took complete responsibility for the hepatitis epidemic, as well as for the notable absence of yellow fever among the troops. He would be remembered for the former, not the latter.
It was October 15, 1951, when Max Theiler received a cablegram at his lab in New York. He had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his “discoveries concerning yellow fever and how to combat it.” When asked what he would do with his $32,000 prize money, Theiler responded: “Buy a case of Scotch and watch the Dodgers.”
Max Theiler is the only scientist ever to receive the Nobel Prize in connection with yellow fever.
CHAPTER 27
History Repeats Itself
Today, Aedes aegypti, the striped house mosquito, is blamed for any urban outbreak of yellow fever, but several other mosquitoes are known to carry the yellow fever virus as well. Those mosquitoes play a part in what’s known as jungle yellow fever. They live in the tree canopies of Africa and South America and pass the virus back and forth through wild monkeys. When a human becomes infected it is because he, and they are usually young men, is working in the jungle clearing forests. In fact, jungle yellow fever is considered more of an occupational hazard than anything else. It survives on a continual cycle between mosquito and monkey, with the occasional human getting caught in the crossfire.
An urban epidemic of yellow fever occurs when jungle yellow fever makes the jump into a large human population. The forest-dwelling mosquitoes, perhaps an Aedes africanus in Africa or a Haemagogus in South America, fly beyond the borders of the jungle into the territory of a city-dwelling Aedes aegypti. The two mosquitoes share a blood meal from a monkey, and suddenly, the virus is passed from a jungle mosquito to a city mosquito that spreads the virus to a human population. In Africa, the most common type of yellow fever is the intermediate one, in which yellow fever can survive in terrains between the jungle and urban cities. Whether it starts as a jungle outbreak in South America or an intermediate one on the African savannah, the worst-case scenario is the same: The fever moves into a large city, the virus builds more strength, and it infects thousands. An outbreak of urban yellow fever is always considered an epidemic.
Because the virus is not part of an urban cycle the way it is in the jungle, the virus is unleashed on a fresh population of nonimmunes. It is much the same as it was 400 years ago when Europeans first arrived in Africa during the slave trade. They landed on the shores of West Africa armed and ready to export human labor; instead, many served as nothing more than an import of nonimmunes for the yellow fever virus.
In just the same way, the cycle happened on this side of the world. It attacked nonimmune populations that had never before seen the virus. Aedes aegypti mosquitoes traveled on board the ships