On the Japanese B—West Nile Virus Complex or an Arbovirus Problem of Six Continents *

Abstract

Ten years ago the expanding role of arthropod-borne viruses in tropical medicine was reviewed at the Harvard School of Public Health Conference on Industry and Tropical Health in Boston. This report dealt with a decade of evolution of this new and major field in tropical medicine, largely led and supported by The Rockefeller Foundation. The discovery of new arbovirus diseases, definition of epidemiology of those previously known, isolation of a plethora of new agents, the unscrambling of systems for taxonomy and classification and the exemplary collaboration of scientists around the world has been documented by an informal arbovirus information exchange, the Catalogue of Arthropod-Borne Viruses of the World and a variety of formal journals and monographs. No publication of these contributions to scientific knowledge has been more devoted to this new field in tropical medicine than our own American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. You have all witnessed the ramifications of this development in arbovirology.