Japanese encephalitis and Murray Valley encephalitis have health authorities concerned. We spoke to the experts to find out everything you need to know about the viruses.
There have been multiple cases of JE detected in recent months following the floods.Dominic Dwyer, a medical virologist with NSW Health Pathology, said MVE was similar to JE, and most people did not know if they had been infected with either."With both of them [brain inflammation] is relatively uncommon. Only one in a couple of hundred people who get infected will get the encephalitis.
Dr Webb said mosquitoes typically picked up MVE and JE from waterbirds, which were also thriving due to flooding, before passing the viruses onto humans."Large populations of mosquitoes doesn't necessarily guarantee an outbreak of disease," Dr Webb said.Surveillance helps with the early detection of mosquito-borne viruses.Professor Dwyer said MVE had been around for a long time and there had been occasional outbreaks, such as in the 1970s.
"It sparks concern because it's new and we don't really know the extent of it and whether it's likely to now be part of our ecology forever.Mosquito populations are trapped and sampled to test for viruses.
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