Yellow Fever Vaccine - A Brief History

Yellow fever vaccine is an attenuated, live virus vaccine that has been used since the 1930s.
The isolation of the Asibi and French strains of yellow fever in 1927 enabled the development of vaccines. Scientists at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York developed a live vaccine (17D) attenuated by serial passage of the Asibi strain in embryonated chicken eggs. The 17D vaccine was first tested in 1936 in New York and in 1937 in Brazil.
Although the vaccine has been available for more than 60 years, the number of people infected over the last two decades has increased and yellow fever is now a serious public health issue in a number of countries once again. (1)
While initially 2 different vaccines (French Neurotropic Vaccine & US 17 D vaccine) were used, due to higher CNS related side-effects the French Vaccine was abandoned & production stopped in 1982. (2)
References
1. http://www.immunizationinfo.org/vaccines/yellow-fever (accessed August 2010)
2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892770/ (accessed August 2010)

All information provided by Dr Gaurav Gupta, MD, Charak Clinics. Stamaril, Yellow Fever Vaccine is available at Charak Clinics, Chandigarh, North India for all travelers to Endemic Countries in Africa / Central & South America with WHO certificate of vaccination valid for 10 years. For details write to us at drgaurav-at-charakclinics.com (replace -at- by @) or call at 91-172-5092585, 91-9872303775 during Office Hours.