Yellow fever is a serious infectious disease that can be transmitted by the bite of two types of mosquitoes, Aedes Aegypti, responsible for other infectious diseases, such as dengue or Zika, or Haemagogus Sabethes.
This condition causes symptoms such as abdominal pain, headache or fever, and although you don’t have a specific treatment, your symptoms can be relieved with the use of certain medications indicated by your doctor.
- Yellow fever symptoms appear about 3 to 6 days after a mosquito bite.
- Characterizing the acute phase of infection.
These are the most common symptoms of yellow fever. Therefore, if you think you have the infection, select how it feels to know your risk:
After the acute phase, symptoms may go away for 1 or 2 days, but other more severe symptoms appear quickly, such as yellow eyes, vomiting with blood, bleeding or severe abdominal pain, which can be life-threatening and characterize the toxic phase. yellow fever.
In case of suspected yellow fever, it is very important to seek medical assistance to perform a blood test to confirm the disease. It is also advisable not to take any medicines at home, as they may contain substances that aggravate the symptoms of the disease.
All cases of yellow fever should be reported to health authorities as it is an easily transmitted disease, at high risk of causing an epidemic.
Treatment of yellow fever should be guided by a gpated doctor and usually consists only of relieving symptoms of the disease, such as fever, headache, nausea and vomiting.
For example, it is recommended to stay at home, at rest, avoiding going to school or work and investing in 2 liters of water or coconut water a day to avoid dehydration caused by vomiting.
Because there is no specific remedy for yellow fever, your doctor may indicate that treatment is based on the individual’s symptoms. Ribavirin is a drug that acts on the liver and has good results, bringing the cure to the disease, but it should be used as an injection and in Brazil, it is only found in tablet form, so it is usually not indicated.
Medications your doctor may recommend to a person to recover faster include:
Remedies containing aspirin are not recommended as they can cause bleeding and death, as in the case of dengue. Some of the remedies for yellow fever are AAS, aspirin, Doril and Calmador. See others that can’t be used for yellow fever either.
In the most severe cases, treatment should be performed in the hospital with serum and vein medication, as well as oxygen to avoid serious complications, such as bleeding or dehydration, which may endanger the patient’s life.
Signs of improvement in yellow fever appear 2 to 3 days after starting treatment and include decreased fever, relief of muscle and headache pains, and decreased vomiting.
Signs of worsening are related to dehydration and therefore include increased vomiting, decreased urine, excessive fatigue and apathy. In these cases, it is recommended to go to the emergency room to start appropriate treatment.
Complications affect 5-10% of yellow fever patients, and in this case, treatment should be done with admission to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Signs of complications may include decreased urine, apathy, prostration, vomiting with blood, and kidney failure, for example. When the patient arrives in this condition, he or she must be transferred to the hospital for admission, as hemodialysis may need to be intubated, for example.
The main way to prevent yellow fever infection is the vaccine, available at health or vaccination centers. Learn more about the yellow fever vaccine and when to take it.
In addition, it is also necessary to avoid the bite of the mosquitoes they emit, taking some precautions such as:
See other great tips for fighting mosquito and preventing yellow fever in this video: