A little bit about this disease that you're reading about...

Rift Valley Fever is a really intimidating name for a really unintimidating virus. It originated in Africa some time ago, and was officially called Rift Valley Fever in the early 1930s. It has many symptoms, listed on the side of the page, and can either be very, very bad or not too bad at all. Even though it's listed as a hemorrhagic (bleeding) fever, less than 2% of human cases become hemorrhagic. For animals, however, it's a completely different story. Nearly 98% of animal cases are fatalities, and pregnant animals that contract this disease always abort the young. If you should contract this disease, there's hope for you! We don't know enough about the disease to create or discover a cure, but it is easy to recover from if you have the right hospital resources. Most outbreaks happen in Africa, and only a small handful have occurred elsewhere. Chances are, if you are properly fed, healthy, and live in a place that is not Africa, you are safe from this disease and do not need to worry. That doesn't stand to say, however, that Rift Valley Fever is not dangerous or deadly. It has been known to strike up surprisingly and kill hundreds of thousands of people in just a few short months. Until we can find a cure for RVFV, the only thing we can do is protect ourselves from bugs in areas where RVFV is endemic, and hope that modern science advances enough to come up with a real cure.