Recommendations for the use of Japanese encephalitis vaccines

Japanese encephalitis (JE) is a mosquito-borne viral infection which is prevalent in Taiwan. The virus circulates in an enzootic cycle in pigs which serve as amplifying hosts. Outbreaks typically occur during summer. A universal vaccination program using 4-shot mouse brain-derived inactivated vaccine has successfully controlled JE epidemics in Taiwan since 1968. More than 90% of JE cases in recent years were older than 20 years in Taiwan. Because of several drawbacks, mouse brain-derived vaccine has been replaced by newer generation JE vaccines, including inactivated Vero cell-derived vaccine and live chimeric vaccine. The present article describes the recommendations in Taiwan for the use of new JE vaccines and the schedules for shifting between different JE vaccines.