Medical Conferences

What is Japanese encephalitis?

Japanese Encephalitis (JE) is by the “Japanese encephalitis virus-induced, serious tropical disease that occurs mainly in East and Southeast Asia.

The virus, an arbovirus, which belongs to such as the causal agent of yellow fever to the Flaviviridae that infects the brain, causing inflammation and swelling and can lead to permanent brain damage and death. In Southeast Asia, there are regular epidemics during the rainy season, hundreds of which, in countries without an effective vaccination program to thousands of victims claim.

What are the symptoms of Japanese encephalitis?

In most cases, the infection is mild or even asymptomatic. Average one of 300 infections with Japanese encephalitis leads to a serious illness. Among the patients use at the beginning usually flu-like symptoms with fever, chills, fatigue, headache, nausea and vomiting. In children, a sudden convulsion may be the first signs of illness. In the early stages of the disease, there is often confusion and unrest.

The disease may progress for an inflammation of the brain, in which patients lose their faculty of speech, suffer from convulsions and paralysis, or falling into a coma. The disease can then also run fatal. Year end from 50,000 cases to 15,000, with the death of the patient. Every second survivor may suffer in lifelong disabilities caused by permanent neurological and psychiatric sequelae, which require in part a lifelong treatment. In children, the neurological damage can cause long-term developmental and behavioral changes.

As the Japanese encephalitis is transmitted?

The Japanese encephalitis is a zoonosis. The Japanese encephalitis virus is of particular types of mosquitoes (usually Culex tritaeniorhynchus from, transfer or C. C. fuscocephala annulus) to humans. These mosquitoes usually occur in rural rice-growing areas of Asia, but also occur in urban fringes. The inclusion of the virus carried by mosquitoes during a blood diet of domestic pigs, horses or wild birds (eg herons), are infected with Japanese encephalitis virus. The infected mosquitoes then transmit the Japanese encephalitis virus during their next blood meal to other pigs and water birds or to humans.