What should you know about Japanese encephalitis and yellow fever?

Japanese encephalitis is found in parts of Asia and the western Pacific and can affect the brain in a small proportion of infected people. Yellow fever occurs in parts of Africa and South America and can cause fever, jaundice and bleeding illness.

They are not the same infection and one vaccine does not replace advice about the other. Mosquito bites can happen outdoors or indoors, so destination, season, accommodation, rural exposure and trip length all matter.

Arrange a travel-health appointment well before departure. Share your itinerary, dates, stopovers, previous vaccines, pregnancy status, immune conditions and medicines. A Yellow Fever Vaccination may be advised for protection or required for entry to some destinations.

Use repellent, cover exposed skin, sleep in screened or air-conditioned rooms and follow local mosquito precautions. These measures remain useful even when vaccination is recommended.

After travel, seek urgent medical advice for fever with severe headache, confusion, seizures, unusual sleepiness, jaundice, bleeding, breathing difficulty or repeated vomiting. Tell the clinician where you travelled and when symptoms began.

Ask which infections occur along your route, whether vaccination is suitable for you, how to manage vaccine precautions, what mosquito protection to pack and which post-travel symptoms need same-day assessment.