This site is intended for healthcare professionals

Go to /sign-in page

You can view 5 more pages before signing in

Japanese B encephalitis

Authoring team

Japanese encephalitis (JE) is a mosquito-borne (Culex tritaeniorhynchus) infection caused by a single-serotype RNA flavivirus (1).

  • tend to occur in wet areas (rice paddies and other open water sources) where Culex tritaeniorhynchus (and similar species) lay eggs
  • pigs and aquatic birds are important as principal vertebrate amplifying hosts
  • is not transmitted from person to person (2)
  • humans rarely develops enough viremia to infect feeding mosquitoes (dead-end JE virus hosts)
  • <1% of human JEV infections result in JE (1)

The infection risk to travellers is 1:5000/month if living more than a month in rural areas during the season

It rarely (1 in 300 cases) proceeds to encephalitis but tends to be more serious in non-immune older patients. It is a greatly-feared disease, fatal in 25% of cases and causing parkinsonism, paralysis and retardation in 30-70% of survivors. It also causes abortion and fetal death.

Japanese and other children are routinely immunised.

Reference:


Create an account to add page annotations

Annotations allow you to add information to this page that would be handy to have on hand during a consultation. E.g. a website or number. This information will always show when you visit this page.

The content herein is provided for informational purposes and does not replace the need to apply professional clinical judgement when diagnosing or treating any medical condition. A licensed medical practitioner should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions.

Connect

Copyright 2024 Oxbridge Solutions Limited, a subsidiary of OmniaMed Communications Limited. All rights reserved. Any distribution or duplication of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited. Oxbridge Solutions receives funding from advertising but maintains editorial independence.