ABSTRACT
1 - More than hundred febrile haemorrhagic jaundice cases with an unexpectedly high number of death happened in the north-west of the Ivory Coast between October 1977 and December 1977. It was the end of the rainy season and in this area, yellow fever is a dreadful eventuality. 2 - Epidemiological and serological survey was immediately carried out. Presence of numerous yellow fever potential vectors was well known and has been noticed in September 1977; there were some left in December 1977. Therefore no virus was isolated either in September or further. 3 - Haemagglutination-inhibition, complement-fixation and neutralization tests were performed with six flavivirus antigens, i.e. yellow fever, Wesselsbron, West Nile, Ntaya, Uganda S and Zika. 2 or 3 sera from 29 patients and 49 school children who have recent jaundice history, sometimes with haemorrhagic symptoms, were available. Single sera from 52 young rural workers and 402 inhabitants of surrounding villages were examined too. 4 - By the way of clinical, epidemiological, serological evidence, authors concluded 21 cases were certainly yellow fever. Evidence of 2 other cases was demonstrated by specific micropathological features. Furthermore, by serological results, 20 were probably yellow fever, 15 were inconclusive and 476 certainly not. 5 - Authors discussed some specific difficulties of yellow fever retrospective diagnosis in flavivirus endemic area.