Wife of Corowa’s David Kiefel warns on Japanese encephalitis danger, as he fights for life

The wife of a Corowa man who contracted Japanese encephalitis from a mosquito bite has told how he is battling for life and now tragically unable to speak or move.

David Kiefel barely felt the mosquito bite which has seen him fighting for his life in intensive care since he first started to feel unwell in February.

Within days of being bitten he was in the ICU after testing confirmed he was among the first of 38 people to contract Japanese encephalitis virus in an outbreak which has rung alarm bells among public health experts and poses a significant threat to Australia’s agricultural sector.

Mr Kiefel, 61, is one of the few people to survive a full blown case the virus, a previously tropical disease which mosquitoes spread among pigs, horses and people, and which took an unexpected foothold in Australia earlier this year.

Experts say the disease’s arrival in Australia, which has killed four people so far, is a direct result of flooding and climate change.

Mr Kiefel’s wife, retired nurse Jacqueline Monk, told the Sunday Herald Sun her husband’s plight should serve as a warning to take the outbreak of the virus seriously.

David Kiefel and his wife, Jacqueline Monk. Picture: Supplied

Mr Kiefel was one of the few people in their hometown of Corowa, along the Murray River, who was not considered a risk of contracting the disease.

The town is home to one of the largest piggeries in Australia, but Mr Kiefel, a retired banker and auditor, was likely bitten in his backyard or while tending to horses the couple keep on a friend’s property.

Ms Monk says her husband’s symptoms are now akin to someone with “locked in syndrome”, where he largely paralysed but is fully aware of his surroundings, can follow his beloved Hawthorn Football Club and can communicate with facial expressions and the help of a lip-reading interpreter.

She said the outlook for her husband was unclear, and that he might not survive the disease despite his fighting will.

“I look at David, and I am so proud of him, how he’s managed to keep positive,” she said.

“I would have gone nuts.”

David Kiefel has been in intensive care since contracting Japanese encephalitis in February. Picture: Supplied

Ms Monk said governments must do as much possible to keep on top of the disease, vaccinations for which are produced overseas, are expensive, and are in such short supply that researchers have been experimenting with administering “microdoses” of the vaccine to see how far they can stretch supplies.

Authorities have also issued warnings to anyone visiting towns near piggeries to use mosquito repellent and wear long sleeves to avoid being stung.

Ms Monk said staff at the Alfred and Albury hospitals had been amazing, but that she feared they might not be able to cope if there was another summer of floods, a boom in mosquito numbers, and if more people contracted the virus.

“We are going to see so much more of this,” Ms Monk said. “It’s not going away. It’s going to be here forever.”