Yellow fever

Yellow fever is a disease caused by a virus that is transmitted by mosquitoes. Female mosquitoes take in the virus by feeding on the blood of an infected human. Within the gut of the mosquito the virus replicates and then moves to the haemocoel. From the haemocoel the virus then enters the salivary glands and are then transmitted with saliva into a new host when the mosquito next feeds.

Yellow fever is endemic to South America and Africa.

A photograph of an adult female Aedes aegypti mosquito taking a blood meal. The mosquito is a vector of yellow fever.
Photograph by United States Department of Agriculture.

Other names for (or types of) Yellow fever include:

• American plague

Related terms

• Dengue fever
• Diptera
• Epizootic
• Gut
• Haemocoel
• Malaria
• Vector

Related groups of terms

• General biology

Related pages on this web site

• True flies - Order Diptera

See other words beginning with Y