Yellow fever in Asia. Since the 1980s, the number of cases of yellow fever has been increasing. This is believed to be due to fewer people being immune, more people living in cities, people moving frequently, and changing climate increasing the habitat for mosquitoes. The disease originated in Africa, from where it spread to South America through the slave trade in the 17th century. Since the 17th century, several major outbreaks of the disease have occurred in the Americas, Africa, and Europe. In the 18th and 19th centuries, yellow fever was seen as one of the most dangerous infectious diseases. In 1927
1793 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic vector of the 1793 plague in Philadelphia (and other Atlantic ports) was the British merchant ship "Hankey", which had fled the West African colony of Bolama (an island off West Africa, present day Guinea-Bissau) the previous November, trailing yellow fever at every port of call in the Caribbean and eastern Atlantic seaboard. See: "The Ship of Death: The Voyage That Changed the Atlantic World". After two weeks and an increasing number of fever cases, Dr. Benjamin Rush, a doctor's apprentice during the city's 1762 yellow fever epidemic, saw the pattern; he recognized that yellow fever had returned. Rush alerted his