Yellow fever responsible for killing thousands of monkeys in Brazil is now killing humans: Brazil issued emergency situations for 63 cities

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• Officials declared emergency situation in 64 cities in Minas Gerais and are sending millions of extra doses of vaccines to three states days before Carnival. 

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – The federal government of Brazil has issued emergency situations for 63 cities in Minas Gerais and one in Espirito Santo due to the outbreak of yellow fever.
Since the beginning of the year authorities have confirmed 44 people died of the disease and over seventy other suspected deaths are being investigated.
At least 30 people have died in the Brazilian state of Minas Germ over the past week due to yellow fever, while the total number of suspected cases has risen to 110, health authorities confirmed Thursday.
According to the state's Secretariat of Health, among the 30 dead, 10 have been proven to be caused by the disease, while all the others tested positive for yellow fever.
The outbreak seemed to be getting worse as the number of cases has risen from 48 to 110 over the last week.
Yellow fever is an acute viral disease which can kill a sufferer in less than a week if not treated timely.
It is mainly transmitted by the bite of an infected female mosquito.
Yellow fever is also commonly found in monkeys but now appears to be infecting humans as yellow fever is thought to be behind the death of thousands of rare monkeys found in the rain forests of Brazil
The outbreak started last year in South America and has now spread to humans killing nearly a hundred people this year already.
The authorities have rushed vaccines to hospitals, where long queues await inoculation.
But there is no vaccine for monkeys who are dying en masse in Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais, the two states so far worst hit.
“Some 80 to 90 per cent of the brown howler monkeys are infected or have already died,” says Sergio Mendes at the Federal University of Espírito Santo in Vitoria, Brazil.
“This is a true catastrophe.
These outbreaks happen periodically, but this is the worst I’ve ever seen.”
Mendes knows of 400 howler monkey deaths in the state, and he believes this is likely to be only 10 per cent of the total, around 4,000 at least, with the greatest losses happening largely unseen in remote forested areas. 

Something is killing howler monkeys in Nicaragua too and nobody knows what it is, although
Some conservationists speculate that the primates’ plight might be related to drought, food shortages or other environmental factors.
But one leading primate expert thinks the monkey die-off could be an early warning sign for something far more serious: a new viral outbreak.

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