<\/p>\n
A free Japanese encephalitis vaccine is available (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Free JEV vaccine<\/p>\n
The Department of Health is urging Victorians to protect themselves from bites this summer.<\/p>\n
The Victorian Chief Health Officer Dr Caroline McElnay said early detection was critical to warn communities where people plan to spend much of the summer outdoors.<\/p>\n
She said mosquito-borne diseases such as JEV can cause serious illness but were largely preventable through use of repellent, covering up and controlling mosquitoes around the home.<\/p>\n
“A free Japanese encephalitis vaccine is available for eligible people due to their increased risk of exposure,” Dr McElnay said.<\/p>\n
“Anyone can be bitten by mosquitoes, but people living, working or spending time outdoors in northern Victoria \u2014 especially near rivers \u2014 may be at higher risk.<\/p>\n
“The best protection is to avoid mosquito bites.”<\/p>\n
The department said it was working with the Horsham Rural City Council to treat mosquito breeding sites and reduce mosquito numbers in the region.<\/p>\n
Loose-fits, light-colours<\/p>\n
The Department of Health said the best way to avoid the virus was through minimising the risk of mosquito bites.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mosquitoes belonging to the genus Culex are thought to play the most important role in Japanese encephalitis virus transmission. (Supplied:\u00a0Cameron Webb\/NSW Health Pathology)<\/p>\n
The Department encouraged the public to:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Wear long, loose-fitting, light-coloured clothing outdoors<\/p>\n
\u2022 Use mosquito repellents containing picaridin or DEET<\/p>\n
\u2022 Limit time outside when mosquitoes are most active (dawn and dusk)<\/p>\n
\u2022 Remove stagnant water around your home where mosquitoes breed<\/p>\n
It said a booster dose to protect against JEV may be recommended once every one to two years after completing the initial course of vaccinations.<\/p>\n
The Department encouraged Victorians to speak to their doctor, local council, Aboriginal health service or community pharmacy about the JEV vaccination, and if they are eligible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japanese encephalitis Virus (JEV) has been detected for the first time this summer, in mosquitoes at Horsham, 300…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,5171,52222,137,181184,181185,1679,13262,4886,7277,93757],"class_list":["post-321770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-department-of-health","tag-encephalitis","tag-health","tag-japanese-encephalitis-virus","tag-jev","tag-medicine","tag-regional","tag-vaccine","tag-virus","tag-wimmera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}