Epidemiological Notes on Some Viruses Isolated In Uganda (Yellow fever, Rift Valley fever, Bwamba fever, West Nile, Mengo, Semliki forest, Bunyamwera I Ntaya, Uganda S and Zika viruses)

Abstract

During a period of 10 years (1937-1947) 10 different viruses were isolated at the Yellow Fever Research Institute (now Virus Research Institute), Entebbe, Uganda. Two of these, yellow fever and Rift Valley fever virus, had been studied in considerable detail prior to their isolations in Uganda, but the nature of the Uganda isolations has greatly helped to unravel the natural history of the former and suggested some epidemiological links which may be of importance in the development of our knowledge of the epidemiology of the latter. Of the remaining eight viruses, all were thought to be hitherto unknown agents and subsequent studies confirmed this belief except in the case of one of them, namely Mengo encephalomyelitis virus, which was shown to be related to the Columbia SK, MM and encephalomyocarditis viruses (DICK, 1949; WARREN, SMADEL and Russ, 1949; OLITSKY and YAGER, 1949).