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Latest News
- Risks and illnesses
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- Category: Risks and illnesses
- Published: Wednesday, 18 September 2013 12:44
- Written by Tonia Buzzolini
By Dr Eddy Bajrovic, Medical Director, Travelvax Australia.
Imagine you travelled overseas and picked up an extremely contagious virus.
One you could pass on to others even before you knew you’d been infected: To other guests at your hotel, passengers around you on your return flight, your immediate family and friends, and the people in your suburb or town.
This virus potentially could make you so sick that you need hospital treatment. If that’s not bad enough, local health authorities also have to spend thousands of dollars tracking down and treating everyone you and those you unwittingly infected have come into contact with. Ultimately, scores of people could be involved, their lives and health effected for weeks.
- Details
- Category: Risks and illnesses
- Published: Wednesday, 11 September 2013 10:53
- Written by Tonia Buzzolini
Japanese encephalitis – ‘rare’ doesn’t mean ‘never’ Heading to Asia? Japanese encephalitis is one of the many mosquito-borne diseases you might hear mentioned as you prepare for your trip. Potentially, it's more lethal than dengue and Chikungunya, the better known, but (generally) more benign diseases spread by mozzies in tropical and sub-tropical regions.
In fact, in terms of potential severity, Japanese encephalitis (or JE as it is known) ranks closer to yellow fever or malaria, but with far fewer cases – particularly among travellers.
There have been only 62 documented travel-related cases of JE in the past 40 years, although an estimated 30,000-50,000 people living in the rural rice-growing, pig-farming areas where the disease typically occurs are infected each year.
That makes JE a rare event among travellers. But, 'rare' does not mean 'never', as 2 recent worrying cases involving travellers show.
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- Category: Risks and illnesses
- Published: Wednesday, 26 June 2013 15:52
"So, any holiday romances? Did you get lucky?" asks the not so subtle friend.
"Well, there was this one guy..." the still-sunburnt Rhonda replies, recalling her recent holiday to Bali when a handsome young Indonesian man approached her on the beach. Later, over a 'Flaming Rhonda' cocktail, our besotted Aussie utters the now-immortal line: "Kiss me, Ketut!"
