Yellow fever - French Guyana (02): not

International Society for Infectious Diseases
<http://www.isid.org>

Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 10:08:41 +0200
From: Arnaud Tarantola <mailto:a.tarantola@invs.sante.fr>

the French reference laboratory for Yellow Fever in
Cayenne and the Institut de Veille Sanitaire (the French health
protection agency) wish to clear up certain misunderstandings and
misinterpretations.

There is no ongoing Yellow Fever outbreak in French Guiana. The
misunderstanding arose when a team of Lithuanian basketball players
stopped over in Cayenne on their way to Sao Paulo, Brazil. As
mentioned by the ProMED editor, French Guiana is located in the
geographic zone where Yellow Fever is circulating and Brazil requires
that travellers coming from French Guiana be immunized. The team was
therefore initially refused entry.

Yellow fever was evidenced in 1951 in French Guiana and Yellow fever
immunization has been compulsory there since 1967. In the year 2000,
a cluster survey showed that immunization coverage in the population
could be estimated at 80-90 percent, depending on the age category --
see the URL provided below. The last case of autochthonous Yellow
Fever notified in Guiana occurred in 1998 in a town on the border
with Surinam [see ProMED refs. below]. Since then, the compulsory
notification system built around all health care structures and a
reference laboratory at Cayenne's Pasteur Institute have received no
notification of Yellow fever cases.

< http://www.invs.sante.fr/publications/2002/couv_vaccin_guyane/r_couv_vaccin_guyane.pdf>