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Mystery Rays from Outer Space
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| “Episode de la fièvre jaune” |
By analyzing hepatitis C virus genome sequences, you can trace the virus’s history through its spread by the slave trade, and linked 19th-century health models in different countries to viral spread and transmission. Similarly, by looking at leprosy DNA, you can track its spread along the Silk Road and along slave routes.
Yellow Fever was one of the most dreaded plagues of the 18th and 19th centuries, waning only after it was understood to be mosquito-borne, so that mosquito control pushed the virus back. It’s still prevalent in Africa and in some parts of South America, though. Yellow Fever virus, too, originated in Africa and was spread to the New World through the slave trade:
The most commonly cited hypothesis of the origin of YFV in the Americas is that the virus was introduced from Africa, along with A. aegypti,1 in the bilges of sailing vessels during the slave trade. … We estimate that the currently circulating strains of YFV arose in Africa within the last 1,500 years and emerged in the Americas following the slave trade approximately 300–400 years ago. These viruses then spread westwards across the continent and persist there to this day in the jungles of South America.2
Mosquitoes aren’t merely passive carriers of the Yellow Fever virus. The virus actively infects …