N. Deborah Friedman1
1VICNISS, Melbourne Health 300 Grattan Street Parkville, VIC
In early 2022, locally acquired Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) disease was detected for the first time in humans in the southern states of Australia. Nationally, since January 2021, 45 people have been infected with JEV in Australia and seven people have died as a result. Preceding this, a sentinel case of JEV was identified in the Tiwi islands in 2021, after a long hiatus following cases in 1995 and 1998 in the tropical far north of Queensland.
In early 2023, after three consecutive La Niña years, and major flooding events in the last quarter of 2022, human cases of Murray Valley encephalitis virus (MVEV) re-emerged. While MVEV is endemic to Northern Australia, it only occasionally spreads to the southern states during times of heavy rainfall during the summer monsoon season via seasonal flooding of the Murray-Darling River system. In Victoria, the hiatus had been nearly 50 years since the last MVE cases were seen, and 2023 saw 6 human cases detected, 5 of which were fatal.
Significant weather patterns are thought to have contributed to the resurgence of MVEV across the southeast and the explosive appearance of JEV. There have been no new human cases of JEV identified in Australia since December 2022, and when or whether JEV will become endemic remains unknown.
Mosquito-borne disease ecology is complex and difficult to predict. Increasingly frequent and severe flooding events with less annual rainfall in some states due to changing climate are likely to influence mosquito vector proliferation over the coming years.
Biography
Deborah Friedman is a medical doctor in infectious diseases with over 20 years of experience. She received her Infectious Diseases Fellowship at Duke University Medical Center, and her MD in infection control and hospital-acquired infections.
Her research since that time has largely been in the areas of infections that develop in hospitalised patients, antimicrobial resistance and Buruli ulcer.
She played a major leadership role in infection prevention during the COVID-19 pandemic as Medical Director of the Infection Prevention Control and Response (IPCAR) Team at the Victorian Department of Health.
Most recently she was employed as the Deputy Chief Health Officer in Communicable Diseases in the Victorian Department of Health leading the state-wide public health response to mosquito-borne disease threats. She is the new Director of VICNISS.