Public Health

Statistics

Japanese Encephalitis is predominantly found in South Eastern Asian countries. The region has nearly three billion people at risk for this disease. According to WHO, every year there are 68,000 new reported cases of the disease. Frequently, the individual who find themselves infected with the disease delay treatment of care. The illness incubates for five to fifteen days where Japanese Encephalitis grows within the body. Because of this reason, the patients who present with Japanese Encephalitis have a mortality rate of 30%. Many of the symptoms align with those of influenza, which can have physicians mis JE's indicators. When individuals are treated, the patient's have a 30-50% likelihood of having neurological deficits.

Vaccinations

As noted before, Japanese Encephalitis only provides preventative care options in the form of four treatment options: Inactivated Mouse Brain-Based Vaccine, Inactivated Cell-Based Vaccine, Live Attenuated Vaccine, and Live Chimeric Vaccines. Of these, Inactivated Cell-based vaccines are the most common and requires two shots with about a month in between the doses. This option is typically given in infancy. Inactivated Mouse Brain-Based Vaccines are not produced anymore. Live Attenuated Vaccines are less common and requires one injection before 8 months; whereas, Live Chimeric Vaccines requires one injection at 9 months and booster shot.

Ways to Ensure Your Family is Safe

While Japanese Encephalitis is preventable, you should talk to your primary care physician if you believe you're at risk. Your primary care physician can help educate you or your family on the information about the disease and the side effects of the vaccines. Secondly, you should communicate with your family about early prevention methods. Helping your family stay up-to-date on immunizations can the be difference between health and illness.

The Ten Step Bioterrorism Outbreak Protocol by the CDC

1. Contact emergency and medical services to prepare for outbreak
2. Prepare a risk probability for your area
3. Assess the surrounding resources
4. Acquire those resources necessary for public health actions
5. Develop acceptable guidelines in the immediate community for the outbreak
6. Create a model and operation to monitor health and morbidity of citizens
7. Engage the community with current updates
8. Ensure all staff is properly trained to prevent themselves becoming infected
9. Conduct exercises to help prepare the community
10. Follow-up with the post-action review and take corrective action if necessary

Synopsis
Japanese Encephalitis is a deadly virus that causes major neurological deficits. The virus is predominantly found in the South East Asia. Many of the symptoms of the disease are indicative of an infection: chills, fever, headache, etc. The disease can be very problematic because of this reason. More often than not, physicians may overlook JE unless they know that the patient was recent travel. If an outbreak were to happen in the U.S., this could be a wide spread ailment. The disease not only affects humans, but animals as well. Many of the organisms that acquire JE are considered a dead-end host, because most often the organisms do not survive. In the United States, vaccinations are abundant and outbreak protocols are readily available to healthcare and emergency services. Luckily, this combination of preparation will mitigate the disastrous damage.