Yellow fever virus — taxonomy, vaccines and antivirals

At a glance

Abbreviation	YFV
ICTV species	Orthoflavivirus flavi
Family	Flaviviridae
Baltimore class	IV — (+)ssRNA
Human infection	Human infection recorded; pattern not classified

Also called: Orthoflavivirus flavi

Riboviria › Kitrinoviricota › Flasuviricetes › Amarillovirales › Flaviviridae › Orthoflavivirus

What it is

Taxonomy copied from ICTV MSL41.v1 / VMR_MSL41.v1.20260729.xlsx. These ranks are not hand-edited; a correction means re-running the fetch against a newer release.

Realm	Riboviria
Kingdom	Orthornavirae
Phylum	Kitrinoviricota
Class	Flasuviricetes
Order	Amarillovirales
Family	Flaviviridae
Genus	Orthoflavivirus
ICTV identifier	ICTV19710125
NCBI taxon	3046277
Exemplar isolate	X03700

Host evidence

human: 693 GenBank records

Counts of nucleotide records annotated with that host. Evidence of provenance, not a statement of host range.

Where it occurs

01–1011–100101–1,0001,001–10,000over 10,000not in the reporting set

Cases of Yellow fever reported to WHO by national authorities, latest year 2025. Reported cases undercount true infections, and a zero can mean elimination or simply that nobody reported — each country page carries a data-quality grade saying which. This is occurrence as reported, not a modelled distribution.

What it does

disease-burden figures

effectiveness estimates

vaccine adverse-event figures

randomised trial

pooled or expert review

controlled observational

Deaths per year 2018

51,000 annual deaths (count)

all ages in the modelled endemic population, Africa and South America per population

quote

We estimate that there were 109,000 (95% credible interval [CrI] [67,000-173,000]) severe infections and 51,000 (95% CrI [31,000-82,000]) deaths due to YF in Africa and South America in 2018.

Gaythorpe KA 2021 Elife

Case-fatality

50 CFR of the toxic phase (%)

not reported (all ages), global per case

quote

About 50% of patients in this phase die within 7–10 days.

expert body

Cases per year

200,000 annual cases (count)

not reported (all ages), worldwide count per year

quote

Worldwide, yellow fever virus causes an estimated 200,000 cases of clinical disease and 30,000 deaths annually ( 4 ).

expert body

When problems appear: after the infection, and after the vaccine

Two separate clocks on the same logarithmic scale. The first starts at the infection and shows when its sequelae are described as beginning; the second starts at the dose and shows when the vaccine's adverse events are described as beginning. Each bar is one source's printed window, not a synthesis; hover for the source.

After the infection: post-infectious syndromes 5

After vaccination: adverse events 84 more in the table

Clinical description: when it is observed to begin
Product label observation window

Disease risk and vaccine efficacy: every estimate with its population, design and the sentence it came from.

Vaccines

Nothing in use found in the sources searched. That is not the same as nothing existing; see the methods page for what was searched.

In development

Candidates
Name	Developer	Platform	Use	Stage	Jurisdictions	Trials	Source
Yellow Fever vaccination (17 DD Biomanguinhos)	Oswaldo Cruz Foundation	Not searched yet	Travel	Phase 3	Not searched yet	NCT03132311	candidateId ctgov-yellow-fever-vaccination-17-dd-biomanguinhos-oswaldo
Yellow fever vaccine (live)	Sanofi	Not searched yet	Travel	Phase 3	Not searched yet	NCT07103148	candidateId ctgov-yellow-fever-vaccine-live-sanofi (targetDisease 'Yel
Yellow fever vaccine	Sanofi Pasteur, a Sanofi Company	Not searched yet	Travel	Phase 2	Not searched yet	NCT05011123 NCT04942210	candidateId ctgov-yellow-fever-vaccine-produced-on-serum-free-vero-cel

Antivirals

Not searched yet. No US-approved antiviral for this virus was found in the openFDA drug label endpoint. Only US labels were searched, and only drugs the FDA classes as antivirals.

Antibodies and immune globulins

Not searched yet. No US-approved antiviral antibody for this virus was found in the openFDA drug label endpoint.

Approval status is not a treatment recommendation. Dosing and eligibility are on the label and in national guidelines. This page does not give medical advice and does not render dosing. A development stage is not a measure of how well something works.

Disease risk and vaccine efficacy — burden figures and trial results, each quoted from its source
Yellow Fever vaccine — ingredients, schedule and reported side effects
Vaccine pipeline — candidates listed under “Yellow fever”
Other Flaviviridae viruses

← All viruses · Countermeasure gaps

At a glance

What it is

Host evidence

Where it occurs

What it does

When problems appear: after the infection, and after the vaccine

Vaccines

In development

Antivirals

Antibodies and immune globulins

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