Isolation of Yellow Fever Virus from Haemagogus Lucifer, H. Equinus, H. Spegazzinii Falco, Sabethes Chloropterus and Anopheles Neivai Captured in Panama in the Fall of 1956

Abstract

The staff of the Gorgas Memorial Laboratory has been interested for a number of years in the vectors of yellow fever in Panamá. In the fall of 1949 an attempt was made to isolate virus from mosquitoes captured at two locations; Pacora, where human yellow fever deaths were recorded in November and December, 1948 and Buena Vista, where deaths occurred in August and September, 1949. From the end of September, 1949 to the onset of the dry season in early January, 1950, 2,723 mosquiotes were collected from the Pacora station and 1,672 from the Buena Vista station. However, no yellow fever virus was recovered (Rodaniche, 1951). Although no further human cases were recorded from eastern Panamá until the present year, there was reason to suspect the infection had remained endemic there. This view was supported by the finding of occasional juvenile monkeys with high titers of neutralizing antibodies against yellow fever in their blood (Rodaniche, in press).