I’m toying with the idea of a warm weather vacation and it got me to wondering. In any naval history, getting assigned to the Caribbean was tantamount to a death sentence. Yellow fever would often wipe out half a ship’s crew. (As I recall, Washington, D.C., being, even then, a fetid swamp, had the same problem.)
Yet it’s rare nowadays to hear of * anyone * suffering from yellow fever and, in fact, we flock to those same islands in droves in order to soak up the sun (and rum). While I’m sure that draining swamps had a lot to do with reducing the incidence of yellow fever, it seems like you could never really eradicate it.
So how come no one worries about yellow fever when packing up the suntan oil?
Yellow fever requires a reservior in the wild primate population of an area if it is not being actively transmitted between humans. If it is gone from the human population, and also gone from the local primates, there is no risk of it being transmitted. Since most Caribbean islands lack native primates (a few have introduced populations), there is no risk there.
Yellow Fever still exists in some countries in Africa and South America. They generally require proof of immunization against Yellow Fever, and many countries require proof of immunization for travelers coming from these countries.
Although Panama is indicated as an endemic area for Yellow Fever, AFAIK there have been few if any cases in the past 50 years, even in remote areas. Panama does not require proof of immunization for people entering the country.
Since I travel regularly to areas where Yellow Fever is endemic, I have been immunized (good for 10 years). However, I don’t think Yellow Fever is a significant risk except in some places in Africa.
It seems that the threat has been reduced or removed in some places. Here is the CDC list of all countries and the Yellow Fever and Malaria status of them. I don’t remember, I can check when I get home, but I think that I had a Yellow Fever vaccination before I went to South America.