If you will be travelling with your kids to Asia or Papua New Guinea for a month or more in the next 12 months, I need your help, and your kids help too.

We are looking for volunteers - our clinic is working with researchers in Europe, USA and Australia to study a vaccine designed to protect children from a disease called Japanese Encephalitis.

This is a serious brain infection that can be caught from a single mosquito bite. Japanese Encephalitis can cause death or permanent brain injury.

Although it is fairly rare and mainly occurs in Asia, there have even been cases in the Torres Strait. One fisherman was even infected in the tip of Cape York. Japanese Encephalitis is more dangerous to children compared to adults, yet there is currently no registered vaccine for Australian children who are visiting risk areas in Asia. The JE vaccine we are using for this study is fully registered in Australia, USA, Canada and Europe... but only for adult travellers so far.

So, if you're taking your kids to Asia and they are 17 years of age or younger, they may qualify to receive the vaccination before they travel as part of our study. If they are eligible, they will need to come to our clinic 4-5 times to see me and have some blood tests. For those afraid of injections, and many are, I can use my special skin numbing cream to help make the experience as near to painless as possible.

For more information about volunteering, you can call me, Dr Deb, on 07 3221 9066 or email info@jestudy.com.au