Long-Forgotten Virus Could Return, US Is Not Prepared: Researchers

Officials say that a mosquito-borne virus that wreaked havoc in the 19th century could make a comeback in the U.S.

A CDC electron microscope image shows the yellow fever virus. Erskin L. Palmer/CDC

The mosquito-transmitted illness yellow fever, which caused havoc in the South during the 1800s, may see a resurgence in the United States, according to a new study.

“Currently, the U.S. population is nearly entirely unvaccinated against yellow fever, and there are no vaccine doses in the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile,” wrote the authors of a recent paper in the New England Journal of Medicine.