History of yellow fever as a result of the numerous deaths, of the French company licensed to build the canal resulted in a massive financial crisis in France. History of yellow fever The evolutionary origins of yellow fever most likely lie in Africa. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that the virus originated from East or Central Africa, with transmission between primates and humans, and spread from there to West Africa. The virus as well as the vector "Aedes aegypti", a mosquito species, were probably brought to the western hemisphere and the Americas by slave trade ships from Africa after the first European exploration in 1492. The
Yellow fever there were seriously affected by the "yellow jack". Wanting to regain control of the lucrative sugar trade in Saint-Domingue (Hispaniola), and with an eye on regaining France's New World empire, Napoleon sent an army under the command of his brother-in-law General Charles Leclerc to Saint-Domingue to seize control after a slave revolt. The historian J. R. McNeill asserts that yellow fever accounted for about 35,000 to 45,000 casualties of these forces during the fighting. Only one-third of the French troops survived for withdrawal and return to France. Napoleon gave up on the island and his plans for North America, selling