"Could Yellow Fever Become the Next Pandemic?"

"Health experts struggle to contain a massive outbreak of the deadly mosquito-borne infection".

"KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of the Congo — In the doorway of a one-room yellow fever ward in downtown Kinshasa, a toddler named Julia is slung over her mother’s shoulder. Moments later a nurse directs mother and child to the last vacant bed and inserts an intravenous line into the girl’s wrist. Her lemon-yellow eyes staring vacantly ahead, Julia does not flinch as the needle punctures her skin. She could be awaiting a hand massage or a manicure.

In the bed adjacent to her, 12-year-old Elohim has one knee propped up like a tent stake. His palms and the skin under his fingernails are yellow with jaundice. His gaze trails up a fluid line that coils around the bed net up to his IV bag as he watches it drain.

'Suspected case,' the 50-year-old nurse, Paul Djonga, mutters in French—jabbing his thumb over his shoulder toward the headboard where the boy is draped. 'Suspected?' I ask, certain that a diagnosis could be easily confirmed with a lab test. Djonga nods. 'They’re all only ‘suspected,’ he says. The necessary blood tests to verify a diagnosis have not been conducted."

Emily Baumgaertner reports for the Scientific American August 15, 2016.

SEE ALSO:

"Outbreak Of Yellow Fever In DR Congo Could Go Global, Children's Charity Warns" (Reuters)

"Yellow Fever: Georgetown Expert Calls On Who To Reconvene Emergency Committee, Spread To Republic Of Congo" (Outbreak News Today)