Japanese encephalitis in children
Abstrak: Japanese encephalitis
is a zoonotic disease caused by Japanese encephalitis virus, attacking domestic
animals, mainly pigs and birds.1 It is transmitted to humans by mosquito bites,
namely Culex tritaeniorhyncus.1,2 Japanese
encephalitis may occur at any age with a peak incidence in children less than
15 years.2,3 Most cases are asymptomatic, and the ratio between asymp-tomatic
and symptomatic cases is 25-1,000 : 1.2 This disease is endemic in Southeast
Asia including Indo-nesia, occurring throughout the year with higher in-cidence
during rainy season, with as many as 1,000-2,000 new cases reported each year.Lubis
reported 30 cases (25.4%) of Japanese en-cephalitis out of 118 suspected cases
of viral encepha-litis in Jakarta from April 1981 to March 1982.5 While Kari et
al, reported 55 cases of Japanese encephalitis with an incidence rate of
1:14,000 and mortality rate of 7.27%.
Author: Nurhayati Masloman,
MD; HS Widarso, MD; W Cicilia, MD
Journal Code: jpkedokterangg050060
