For the readers of this article, imagine a time when you were sick and the medicine that is needed to help alleviate the symptoms that you are feeling is not readily available. Take the flu for instance, without the proper medicine needed to help combat the sickness, the disease can be absolute hell on the victims it takes. This doesn’t usually happen in more developed countries and continents, but, nevertheless, many countries around the world who are less developed do not have the medical resources needed to combat diseases, including diseases that can be deadly.

According to the article “Yellow fever vaccine shortage as outbreak in Angola spreads,” written by Debra Goldschmidt and published by CNN, a massive huge amount of people occupying the African country, specifically more than 1,110 people, have fallen victim to yellow fever, according to the World Health Organization. Reportedly, the disease has been the worst outbreak of the virus in recent years, as 178 citizens of the country have died. According to Dr. Sergio Yactayo, an expert on epidemic diseases, “With the majority of cases reported in … Lunada [where the outbreak started], the situation is more dangerous and difficult to contain because the disease can spread easily from one person to another. We are already seeing cases spread to a number of provinces outside Luanda.”

According to WHO, “there are between 84,000 and 170,000 cases of yellow fever a year and as many as 60,000 of those cases are fatal. Yellow fever is a mosquito-borne disease transmitted by two types of mosquitoes. One is Aedes aegypti, the same type of mosquito that transmits Zika virus and dengue fever.” Furthermore, the publication reported that the disease is a viral hemorrhagic illness, which means that the disease is spread when a mosquito bites a monkey that has been affected with the disease and then the monkey bites a another person, thereby infecting them. Although the fever usually lasts for about three to four days, and though the symptoms of the disease are very common, such as a loss of appetite, nausea, and muscle pain, reportedly “Fifteen percent of infected individuals experience a second phase of illness within 24 hours of when they first become sick. This can include jaundice and bleeding from the eyes, nose, mouth, stomach, and eventually, bloody vomit and feces.

A major problem of yellow fever is that there is no cure for the disease, but, nevertheless, according to the article, “There is a vaccine that protects against the virus. Health officials launched a mass vaccination program in February to try to contain this outbreak. Officials in Angola developed a plan to vaccinate nearly 6.5 million people in Luanda and so far 87% of those targeted have been vaccinated. The WHO considers this a success. But supply isn’t meeting the demand for the vaccine because big outbreaks of yellow fever are unusual.”

Although the prospect of a vaccination to alleviate the symptoms of yellow fever, a huge problem has occurred with the vaccination, as according to the article “The emergency stockpile of the vaccine has been exhausted, the WHO said. Another 1.5 million doses are needed for residents of Luanda alone. In the meantime, shipments designated for the national routine vaccination there are being redirected to help control the outbreak,” although some officials worry that there could be a total run out of the vaccination, leading the more and more victims of the yellow fever.