The Yellow Fever Vaccine Misadventure of 1942.

In 1942, a hepatitis B outbreak occurred in the US Army after vaccination with contaminated lots of 17D yellow fever vaccine; long-term sequelae were surprisingly limited, and retrospective studies of carrier rates, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma were found to be minimal. Later studies identified the contaminant as hepatitis B virus (HBV) in the human serum component of the vaccine. Other than 2 follow-up studies of long-term sequelae and reports within US Military archives, the event has never been fully elucidated in its proper historical context in the medical literature available through MEDLINE (PubMed). The outbreak resulted in nearly 50 000 clinical cases, including 29 000 cases of overt jaundice. More than 300 000 troops may have been infected with HBV. The decision to immunize troops received criticism, but the decision may have been reasonable, given the exigencies of an impending war and the possibility that yellow fever could spread to future theaters of war. The epidemic was the largest and most well-documented vaccine-related epidemic in history. Today, independent of war, globalization has actually increased the likelihood of yellow fever importations to vulnerable areas of the world.

A Century in the Life of the Control of Communicable Diseases Manual: 1917 to 2017.

The Control of Communicable Diseases Manual, a premier publication of the American Public Health Association, celebrates its centennial in 2017. The Control of Communicable Diseases Manual has evolved in format and content through 20 separate editions. This article is a follow-up to an earlier article, titled "Evolution of the Control of Communicable Disease Manual: 1917 to 2000," that appeared in the Journal of Public Health Management & Practice in 2001. Our update focuses on the period since the 17th edition, which is characterized by dramatic changes. The 20th edition (2014) added a few arboviral diseases (Banna, Cache Valley, Eyach, Heartland, severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus, Iquitos, and Me Tri), but mostly contracted, leaving 65 arboviral entries. Other categories of pathogens also declined in the most recent editions, indicating an apparent trend to make the manual less encyclopedic. We attempt to explain these and other changes and ask the reader to comment whether they are aware of other related facts or history based on personal experience.

Yellow fever, Asia and the East African slave trade.

Yellow fever is endemic in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South America, yet its principal vectors--species of mosquito of the genus Aedes--are found throughout tropical and subtropical latitudes. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that yellow fever originated in Africa and that its spread to the New World coincided with the slave trade, but why yellow fever has never appeared in Asia remains a mystery. None of several previously proposed explanations for its absence there is considered satisfactory. We contrast the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and trade across the Sahara and to the Arabian Peninsula and Mesopotamia, with that to Far East and Southeast Asian ports before abolition of the African slave trade, and before the scientific community understood the transmission vector of yellow fever and the viral life cycle, and the need for shipboard mosquito control. We propose that these differences in slave trading had a primary role in the avoidance of yellow fever transmission into Asia in the centuries before the 20(th) century. The relatively small volume of the Black African slave trade between Africa and East and Southeast Asia has heretofore been largely ignored. Although focal epidemics may have occurred, the volume was insufficient to reach the threshold for endemicity.

The 1802 Saint-Domingue yellow fever epidemic and the Louisiana Purchase.

Epidemics have been pivotal in the history of the world as exemplified by a yellow fever epidemic in the Caribbean that clearly altered New World geopolitics. By the end of the 18th century, yellow fever--then an "emerging disease"--was widespread throughout the Caribbean and particularly lethal in Saint-Domingue (present day Haiti). From 1793 to 1798, case fatality rates among British troops in the West Indies (including Saint-Domingue) were as high as 70%. A worse fate befell newly arrived French armed forces in 1802, ostensibly sent by Napoleon to suppress a rebellion and to reestablish slavery. Historians have disagreed on why Napoleon initially dispatched nearly 30,000 soldiers and sailors to the island. Evidence suggests the troops were actually an expeditionary force with intensions to invade North America through New Orleans and to establish a major holding in the Mississippi valley. However, lacking knowledge of basic prevention and control measures, mortality from the disease left only a small and shattered fraction of his troops alive, thwarting his secret ambition to colonize and hold French-held lands, which later became better known as the Louisiana Purchase. If an event of the magnitude of France's experience were to occur in the 21st century, it might also have profound unanticipated consequences.

New hypothesis for cause of epidemic among native Americans, New England, 1616-1619.

In the years before English settlers established the Plymouth colony (1616-1619), most Native Americans living on the southeastern coast of present-day Massachusetts died from a mysterious disease. Classic explanations have included yellow fever, smallpox, and plague. Chickenpox and trichinosis are among more recent proposals. We suggest an additional candidate: leptospirosis complicated by Weil syndrome. Rodent reservoirs from European ships infected indigenous reservoirs and contaminated land and fresh water. Local ecology and high-risk quotidian practices of the native population favored exposure and were not shared by Europeans. Reduction of the population may have been incremental, episodic, and continuous; local customs continuously exposed this population to hyperendemic leptospiral infection over months or years, and only a fraction survived. Previous proposals do not adequately account for signature signs (epistaxis, jaundice) and do not consider customs that may have been instrumental to the near annihilation of Native Americans, which facilitated successful colonization of the Massachusetts Bay area.

Alexander the Great and West Nile virus encephalitis.

Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 BC. His death at age 32 followed a 2-week febrile illness. Speculated causes of death have included poisoning; assassination, and a number of infectious diseases. One incident, mentioned by Plutarch but not considered by previous investigators, may shed light on the cause of Alexander's death. The incident, which occurred as he entered Babylon, involved a flock of ravens exhibiting unusual behavior and subsequently dying at his feet. The inexplicable behavior of ravens is reminiscent of avian illness and death weeks before the first human cases of West Nile virus infection were identified in the United States. We posit that Alexander may have died of West Nile virus encephalitis.