GPs are unable to offer vaccination against Japanese encephalitis virus to patients displaced by the SA floods, because of strict state government criteria around which practices can get stocks. 

Immunisation Coalition chair and GP Dr Rod Pearce said patients from the flooded Riverland region who fled their homes had started presenting to his practice in east Adelaide. 

But although they were eligible for the Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) vaccine, when he tried to order government-funded stocks, he was knocked back because his practice was not in a high-risk area.

“We had these patients who couldn’t live up there and were living down here, so we rang [SA Health] and initially got half a dozen vaccines,” said Dr Pearce.