Yellow fever James Carroll, Aristides Agramonte, and Jesse William Lazear. They successfully proved Finlay's ″mosquito hypothesis″. Yellow fever was the first virus shown to be transmitted by mosquitoes. The physician William Gorgas applied these insights and eradicated yellow fever from Havana. He also campaigned against yellow fever during the construction of the Panama Canal. A previous effort of canal building by the French had failed (in part due to mortality from the high incidence of yellow fever and malaria, which killed many workers). Although Dr. Walter Reed has received much of the credit in United States history books for "beating" yellow fever,
Yellow fever symptoms of fever, pain, nausea, and vomiting 6-10 days after leaving the affected area) is treated seriously. If yellow fever is suspected, the virus cannot be confirmed until 6-10 days after the illness. A direct confirmation can be obtained by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, where the genome of the virus is amplified. Another direct approach is the isolation of the virus and its growth in cell culture using blood plasma; this can take 1-4 weeks. Serologically, an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay during the acute phase of the disease using specific IgM against yellow fever or an increase in specific IgG