Health Alerts

Rare monkeys in the forests of Brazil are being decimated by yellow fever. The outbreak started in late 2016 and, as often the case in South America, it has spread to humans, killing at least 50 since the start of 2017. The authorities have rushed vaccines to hospitals where long queues await inoculation. There is no vaccine for monkeys who are dying en masse in Espirito Santo and Minas Gerais, the two states so far worst hit. Some 80 to 90 per cent of the brown howler monkeys are infected or have already died, says Sergio Mendes at the Federal University of Espirito Santo in Vitoria, Brazil. This is a true catastrophe. These outbreaks happen periodically, but this is the worst I have ever seen.