Yellow Fever - The Biggest Health Problem in Brazil

The largest country in South America and the fifth largest nation in the world. Brazil, is known for its hot, arid, and humid dense forests, including the Amazon, the world's biggest jungle in the north. Not only that but the immense plateaus, and long coastal plains. Most Brazilians are Amerindians, European settlers, and Africans. Brazil has a federal representative democratic republic, under a presidential system. Under this system, the President is Head of State and the Head of Government.

The two major problems that should be addressed in Brazil are the lack of clean sanitation in favelas, however one of the bigger problems is what Brazil has been battling for decades, the Yellow fever outbreak. This virus is a mosquito borne virus. This endemic is carried by infected mosquitoes that spread it when they bite humans or monkeys. Symptoms in most people are mild and flu-like: muscle pain, fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, and fatigue. In some cases it causes death due to organ failures. The occurrence of this disease is due to factors such as deforestation which is another problem in Brazil, climate change, global travel, and urbanization. These mosquitoes tend to go to heavily populated areas, so in this case, big cities in Brazil such as Rio. The hot and humid climate also attracts these disease carrying insects. 

Yellow fever typically circulates in forests or jungles, between monkeys and mosquitoes, in what’s known as a “sylvatic cycle”. But when people enter these areas for purposes such as farming and deforestation they get bitten by jungle mosquitoes, which carry the virus. “If infected people return to cities, urban mosquitoes like Aedes aegypti, which also carries Zika, can pick up the virus and spread it to others, starting a chain of human-to-human transmission”. 

Brazil has encountered an outstanding yellow fever flare-up since December 2016. There's no remedy for yellow fever, yet there is a vaccine, and it's exceptionally successful. Inside 10 days of accepting the shot, around 90 percent of individuals are safe. There are just four yellow fever immunization makers affirmed by the World Health Organization. Since the infection had been variably controlled for quite a long time, and interest for the immunization has been low, the makers have not had the motivator to deliver huge stores. In 2016 preceding Brazil's residential yellow fever issue got apparent, Brazil sent a large number of portions from its own store to fight and outbreak in Angola that had overflowed to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Now Brazil doesn't have enough vaccines to give full immunizations to the 23 million people in the states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais considered at immediate risk. The lack of vaccinations are increasing more and more, and at the same time there are increases in mosquitos as well due to the production of climate change and deforestation. The people of Brazil must come up with simple alternatives that can prevent them from getting bitten.

In conclusion, Brazil is suffering a lack of vaccinations causing people in urban neighborhoods to be affected with the virus. Not only that but the majority of the urban population live in favelas, so these people cannot afford preventing products or vaccinations. However if the government funds these solutions by using tax money and implementing insurance on the population, this could result in the rates of affected people. This virus is increasing due to climate change and other factors, so if a diagnosis is not created soon or if there's not enough products and vaccinations made this could become a global threat.