South America has a good climate for Aedes aegypti and other mosquitoes that spread illnesses like dengue, yellow fever, zika, and others.
Right now, it’s cases of yellow fever that are popping up.
Yellow fever is a painful but usually short illness (and usually once in a lifetime). For a few (usually those with already weakened immune systems) it can escalate to a much more severe disease.
While there’s a vaccine for yellow fever that’s recommended for all travelers to more tropical regions, there are some problems that crop up (in fact, they’ve slowed down the dengue vaccine). The main issue is that all these tropical diseases play off of each other. Immunity from one (either living through it or from a vaccine) can make symptoms for another more severe (or very severe if you get two at once, which has happened in recent outbreaks).
In America, these outbreaks are something to watch: it’s not just Florida that’s warm and humid enough for tropical mosquito illnesses. Zika was able to spread as far north as the New York subway, and the mosquito was caught in smaller quantities as far west as southern California.
What you can do:
Follow all travel advisories carefully. At home or abroad, prevention is the best protection. While you should also follow guidelines for West Nile virus and the mosquitoes that carry it, things get trickier when it comes to preventing tropical illnesses. Aedes aegypti lives inside the home, so make sure to follow prevention guidelines (including making it inhospitable on your walls and under your bed using pet and people safe products), and use plenty of bug spray when you’re outside at all times of day. Once the weather warms up, mosquito season will be back.
You can also get general immune support from colloidal silver, as a daily supplement or as a boost when you need it.
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