Symptoms of Yellow Fever

For Everyone

Key points

  • Initial symptoms of yellow fever can include fever, chills, severe headache, back pain, general body aches, nausea, vomiting, fatigue (feeling tired), and weakness.
  • Severe symptoms include high fever, yellow skin or eyes (jaundice), bleeding, shock, and organ failure.
  • If you think you or a family member might have yellow fever, talk to your healthcare provider.
Yellowed eye with jaundice.

Symptoms

Most people infected with yellow fever virus will either have no symptoms or mild symptoms and completely recover. For people who develop symptoms, the time from mosquito bite to feeling sick (incubation period) is typically 3 to 6 days.

Initial symptoms

Initial symptoms can include sudden onset of:

  • Fever
  • Chills
  • Severe headache, back pain, and general body aches
  • Nausea or vomiting
  • Fatigue (feeling tired) and weakness

Most people who develop symptoms improve within one week. For some people who recover, weakness and fatigue (feeling tired) might last several months.

Severe illness

A few people will develop a more severe form of the disease. For 1 out of 7 people who have the initial symptoms, there will be a brief remission (a time you feel better) that may last only a few hours or for a day, followed by symptoms of more severe disease.

Severe symptoms include:

  • High fever
  • Yellow skin or eyes (jaundice)
  • Bleeding
  • Shock
  • Organ failure

Treatment

There are no medicines available to treat yellow fever. Rest, drink fluids, and use over-the-counter pain relievers to reduce fever and relieve aching. Certain medications should be avoided since they increase the risk of bleeding.

Outcomes

Among those who develop severe disease, 30-60% die.

Once you have been infected, you are likely protected against future infections.

For Health Care Providers Clinical Features and Diagnosis of Yellow Fever

Testing and diagnosis

See your healthcare provider if you have visited an area where yellow fever is found (Africa and South America) and have symptoms described above.

  • Tell your healthcare provider when and where you traveled.
  • Your healthcare provider can order tests to look for yellow fever virus or other similar viruses, like dengue.
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Content Source:
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID)