Travel Talk

Recent tetanus cases in NSW, including one death, serve as a harsh reminder of the importance of being up to date with tetanus vaccinations. This was NSW’s first tetanus death in 30 years. What is tetanus?

Murray Valley encephalitis (MVE) and Japanese encephalitis (JE) are both rare but potentially fatal mosquito-borne viral diseases. Recent Australian reports of the two serve as a reminder of the importance of avoiding mosquito bites.

As life and travel return to a sense of normalcy, it is important to remember that we aren’t out of the pandemic yet, we still need to remember the effects of COVID-19 when planning any trips. Before your holiday starts, it is worthwile to consider any impacts COVID-19 may have pre, post, and during your vaction.

Over the holidays, more people are travelling than ever. It is important to be organised and understand the risks that may be involved. Travel requirements and restrictions should be identified before starting your holiday to allow for a stress free vacation.  

As COVID-19 restrictions begin to ease in some areas, people may be able to explore travel throughout Australia. However, the decisions that you make over the next few months could expose you unnecessarily to the virus.

The Brisbane City Council has explained the increase of Ross River Fever cases has been due to heavy than expected rainfall in February.

On the 11 March, 2020, the World Health Organisation declared the current outbreak of a Coronavirus COVID-19, to be a Pandemic. Smart Traveller recommends you reconsider your need for overseas travel at this time.   For up-to-date information on COVID-19 visit:

Large scale events draw immense crowds of people to a specific location for a short period of time.  Events of this scale may include the Rugby World Cup competition, the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, Expos, music festivals, large conventions, and on mass religious celebrations such as the Hajj. 

Planning a trip soon? In 2019 over 4000 Australian tourists ended up in the hospital and over 155 were evacuated back to Australia by Air Ambulance for a variety of ailments, illnesses and accidents*.

Following the reports just over 12 months ago of Papua New Guinea’s first polio case since 1996, Health officials are now confident that they have the polio outbreak under control, after an immense countrywide vaccination campaign.

As of the 1st of April, the start of a 4-year federal government funded campaign commenced to immunise children against A, C, W & Y strains of invasive meningococcal bacteria.

Australian lifesavers had their work cut out for them over the last five weeks, helping with the more than 22,000 people that reported bluebottle jellyfish stings in the south-east regions of Queensland, with the last weekend alone reporting more than 5,000 incidents.