Survey of primates captured in Panamá, R. P. during the years 1952-1956 for protective antibodies against yellow fever.

Abstract

Surveys of the rural population of Panama for protective antibodies against yellow fever, conducted with serums collected in 1937 by Johnson (1938) and in 1941–1942 by Kumm and Crawford (1943) indicated that jungle yellow fever was endemic in San Blas on the Atlantic side of the Continental Divide and in Darien and the lower half of the Province of Panama (adjacent to Darien) on the Pacific side. In recent years, however, extensive vaccination has limited the epidemiological value of such studies of the human population, and forest animals, especially monkeys, have been substituted. In the wake of the 1948 outbreak of jungle yellow fever in Panama, Clark (1950) undertook a general survey of shot forest animals finding a high proportion of all bloods positive for neutralizing antibodies. The author simultaneously began a study of captured forest animals, housed, bled and tested at the Gorgas Memorial Laboratory.