Assam will start a Vaccination drive against Japanese Encephalitis from 22 February

Assam will launch its adult vaccination drive against Japanese Encephalitis (JE) from 22 February 2014. As per the sources, in the first phase, all upper Assam districts will be covered during a weeklong vaccination programme.

With this initiative, Assam will become the first state to start adult vaccination against the deadly disease. On pilot basis, the health department of the state has conducted the adult vaccination in Sivsagar district.

In last 3 years, more than 3000 cases of Japanese Encephalitis have been registered in the state of which 342 people have died. National Rural Health Mission will undertake a massive awareness drive before the programme.

India on 4 October 2013 launched its first indigenous vaccine to protect children from Japanese encephalitis. Till now, the vaccine was imported in India from China.  JE vaccine-JENVAC is a Vero cell derived purified inactivated received manufacturing and marketing approval from Drug Controller General of India. JENVAC is the first vaccine, which will be manufactured in public-private partnership mode between the Indian Council of Medical Research and Bharat Biotech.

Japanese Encephalitis

Japanese encephalitis is a viral disease that infects animals and humans. In humans, it is transmitted by mosquitoes, which causes inflammation of the membranes around the brain. Expansion of the irrigated rice productions systems in over past 20 years in the South and South-East Asia have played an important role in increasing the impact of the disease, which is caused by Japanese Encephalitis. The irrigated fields into the semi-arid areas at the start of each cropping cycle leads to help mosquitoes in building-up explosively. This may cause the circulation of the virus to spill over from their usual hosts (birds and pigs) into the human population.

Japanese encephalitis (JE) is a disease caused by a flavivirus that affects the membranes around the brain. The virus causing Japanese encephalitis is transmitted by mosquitoes belonging to the Culex tritaeniorhynchus and Culex vishnui groups, which breed particularly in flooded rice fields. Japanese encephalitis is a leading cause of viral encephalitis in Asia with 30,000-50,000 clinical cases reported annually.

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