Potential risk of re-emergence of urban transmission of Yellow Fever virus in Brazil facilitated by competent Aedes populations

Abstract

Yellow fever virus (YFV) causing a deadly viral disease is transmitted by the bite of infected mosquitoes. In Brazil, YFV is restricted to a forest cycle maintained between non-human primates and forest-canopy mosquitoes, where humans can be tangentially infected. Since late 2016, a growing number of human cases have been reported in Southeastern Brazil at the gates of the most populated areas of South America, the Atlantic coast, with Rio de Janeiro state hosting nearly 16 million people. We showed that the anthropophilic mosquitoes Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus as well as the YFV-enzootic mosquitoes Haemagogus leucocelaenus and Sabethes albiprivus from the YFV-free region of the Atlantic coast were highly susceptible to American and African YFV strains. Therefore, the risk of reemergence of urban YFV epidemics in South America is major with a virus introduced either from a forest cycle or by a traveler returning from the YFV-endemic region of Africa.