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Infectious Diseases — Updates Since 2020

Guideline & practice changes since 2020

  • Japanese encephalitis is now on the Australian mainland (detected since 2022), including funded at-risk vaccination. See Japanese Encephalitis.
  • Yellow fever vaccination is single-dose, lifelong (WHO 2016), reflected in current International Certificate of Vaccination requirements. See Yellow Fever.
  • Lyme disease is now framed via DSCATT (Debilitating Symptom Complexes Attributed to Ticks) — there is no local Lyme disease transmission in Australia. See Lyme Disease and Tick Bite (also covers Queensland tick typhus/ Rickettsia australis).
  • Typhoid treatment is now azithromycin-first, driven by rising extensively drug-resistant (XDR) typhoid. See Typhoid Fever.
  • Long-acting injectable cabotegravir is now PBS-listed for HIV PrEP in people who can’t take oral PrEP. See PrEP. HIV PEP remains not PBS-subsidised.
  • Faecal-parasite testing threshold: consider after >2 weeks of diarrhoea. See Giardiasis.

New pages added

  • National Immunisation Schedule — full lifespan NIP overview.
  • Adult & At-Risk Immunisation, Catch-Up Schedules (2026-09-01) — assessing vaccination status, catch-up principles, and vaccination for immunocompromised, occupational-risk, migrant/refugee and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults, plus AEFI recognition and reporting. Written against the Australian Immunisation Handbook.

Travel medicine content that briefly lived here as separate pages (Returned Traveller With Fever, Pre-Travel Consultation & Vaccination) was merged into travel-toxicology’s existing Illness in Returned Traveller and The Travel Consultation pages during that category’s 2026-07-23 re-consolidation, once it became clear travel medicine was already covered there — see that category’s Updates page.