Yellow fever is a virus found in tropical and subtropical regions of South America and Africa that is transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito. The majority of people who become infected present little to no symptoms of illness. In those that do develop symptoms, which typically occurs 3 to 6 days after infection, initial symptoms can include fever, chills, severe headache, back pain, body aches, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and weakness. Of these, 15% of the cases may develop into a more severe form with high fever, jaundice, bleeding, shock, and organ failure, with some cases being fatal.
If traveling to a country where yellow fever is endemic, it is recommended that you receive the yellow fever vaccine, in fact some countries may not allow you to enter without proof of inoculation – usually recorded in a yellow World Health Organization International Certificate of Vaccination travel card.
In the U.S. it normally would not be an issue to find a doctor or local pharmacy that carried the FDA approved YF-VAX yellow fever vaccine. However Sanofi Pasteur, the manufacturer of the vaccine, had “manufacturing complications resulting in the loss of a large number of doses” in the fall of 2016, and this paired with the halt in production in the U.S. to transition to a new facility in mid-2018 resulted in a total depletion of YF-VAX in mid-2017.
The remedy for this was that Sanofi Pasteur received approval from the FDA to make Stamaril, a comparable vaccine in terms of safety and efficacy to YF-VAX manufactured by Sanofi Pasteur in France, available under an investigational new drug (IND) program. As stated by the CDC, the IND program only had to be used as the mechanism of the FDA to approve the import of Stamaril, and that it is not actually investigational or experimental as it has been used in European and other countries for decades, just not licensed in the United States.
A stipulation of the IND program is that Stamaril can only be provided to a limited number of clinics, identified in the link below. Although not as numerous as typical YF-VAX providers, they are fairly spread out across the nation. My county’s public health services clinic had Stamaril available, and I received my vaccine two days after setting my appointment. Of note, I had to meet several requirements to receive the vaccine beyond just being in the appropriate age range and being in good health, I also had to identify my need for the vaccine (as in visiting an endemic country, and requiring the vaccination for entry into several countries) as well as having this travel occur no longer than 30 days from the time of the appointment. It’s also worth noting that it takes about 10 days for the vaccine to be effective, so there is a limited window for receiving the vaccine before travel.
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