Studies on yellow fever in inter-epizootic period in Trinidad

ABSTRACT

Following an outbreak of yellow fever in Trinidad in 1978-1979, a study was undertaken to investigate the jungle reservoirs and vectors of yellow fever virus in the inter-epizootic period, to seek evidence of natural transovarial transmission of yellow fever virus in Haemagogus collected. These were made four months after the last detection of virus in that area of the island and could not positively be attributed to transovarial transmission. None of the 42,815 progeny of wild mosquitoes yielded virus. No yellow fever virus was isolated from 34,300 mosquitoes other than Haemagogus nor from 15 vertebrates collected in areas of former virus activity. Good progress was made in optimizing the use of the AP-61 cell line resulting in rapid isolation and identification of dengue and yellow fever viruses from Caribbean countries.