This report only deals with arboviruses found in Africa and agents of zoonoses.
The authors extend the significance of the usual word zoonoses: very often these affections are only inapparent infections, demonstrated only by the presence of specific antibodies either in man or in animals, the clinical symptoms being absent. However, tite number of febrile symptoms of unknown origin in tropical Africa is so high that it will be possible, with the progress of virological studies, to attribute to certain arboviruses the responsibility of well-defined clinical diseases.
The following arboviroses are studied:
1. Infections due to group A arboviruses: Chikungunya, Semliki Forest, Middelburg, Sindbis.
2. Infections due to group B arboviruses: West Nile, yellow fever, Spondweni, Zika, Murray Valley (?), Wesselsbron.
3. Infections due to arboviruses of the Bunyamwera group.
4. Infections due to non-classified arboviruses: Bwamba, Pongola, Quaranfil, Nyamanini, Nairobi, Rift Valley.
For each of these arboviroses, the authors briefly report only the to-day knowledge about the human and animal infection, and the transmission and maintenance cycle of the virus.
In a last chapter are discussed general data on the evolution of these arboviroses, the considerable number of their vectors, and the hazards accompanying the introduction of these infections into countries where they do not exist, but which contain possible vectors.