Brazil Health Ministry Issues Yellow Fever Alert

Text of report by Brazilian news agency Agencia Brasil website

["Temporao Asks Ministry of Tourism To Warn About Suspicions of Yellow Fever" - Agencia Brasil headline.]

Brasilia -In order to keep tourists and workers travelling to Brazil from entering the yellow fever endemic areas without getting vaccinated, the Minister of Health, Jose Gomes Temporao, sent a technical memo to the Ministry of Tourism requesting mobilization to that end.

According to information from the press office of the Ministry of Health, the recommendation was for Tourism Minister Marta Suplicy to forward to the Brazilian Association of Travel Agencies (ABAV) information on the recent cases of patients hospitalized with suspicions of the disease in Goias and in the Federal District.

The concern is due to the holiday period, when many ecotourists look for jungle areas to travel around in. According to the Ministry of Health, it is not necessary to avoid travelling to those places, one just has to take the vaccine 10 days before.

The memo also warns about the historical presence of the virus in all the states of the North and Centre-West regions, as well as a potential risk in the western parts of Piaui, Sao Paulo, Parana, and Santa Catarina and in the southern parts of Bahia and Espirito Santo.

According again to the Health Ministry press office, the document was also sent to the Ministry of Foreign Relations, to warn the embassies and representations of international organizations with offices in Brasilia.

In the last 12 years, Brazil had 349 cases of yellow fever, with 161 deaths. With the notification of new suspicions this year, 300,000 doses of vaccine were shifted from the strategic stock of the Ministry of Health to the Centre-West Region.

Originally published by Agencia Brasil website, Brasilia, in Portuguese 9 Jan 08.

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