The ninth annual World Encephalitis Day reached over 58 million people on the 22nd February, 2022.

Our global awareness campaign was based on the theme of Code Red – the emergency alert code used in hospitals - and was the ideal day for us to launch our Global Impact Report.

Dr Ava Easton, our Chief Executive, said: "We had at least 107 pieces of press coverage, so it was a very successful campaign in that respect. I was also very happy and grateful to see so many healthcare professionals around the world wearing something red and sharing their messages of support and awareness on social media.”

In the month of February, we reached an estimated 2.5 million people through our social media channels with many millions more through traditional media.

An amazing £50,000 was also raised through BrainWalk – our challenge asking supporters to walk, jog, or run as many steps as possible during February.

WED IN NUMBERS

Global Impact Report

The big news from the day was the release of Encephalitis: an in-depth review and gap analysis of key variables affecting global disease burden.

For short, we are calling it the Global Impact Report (this was my suggestion because the full title would take up too much of the 280 Twitter character limit... but don't tell anyone).

This new report from the Encephalitis Society has identified a range of difficulties and solutions to the global impact of encephalitis which could save lives and improve the treatment and after-care of millions of people today and into the future.

We will be talking about this a lot in the coming months and years, so I would suggest watching this podcast with Dr Ava Easton and Dr Julia Granerod to find out more.

#Red4WED photos

Social media turned into a sea of red for World Encephalitis Day 2022 with hundreds of photos on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram

More highlights

Our Ambassador Charlotte Leeming took the streets of Leeds to pose a very important question – how do you pronounce encephalitis?

This was a lot of fun – despite the Yorkshire weather – and we have to say a big thank you to everyone who agreed to be interviewed. Good sports one and all.

A very warm welcome to Karen Tighe who joins our amazing Ambassador team. Karen is an award-winning sports broadcaster and presenter from Australia and, alongside her friends Rachael Schwarz, Corinna Melville and Veronique Theberge and other members of Team Encephalitis, are really driving forward encephalitis awareness in Australia. Welcome, Karen! Read More about Karen

Karen also spoke to ABC Breakfast News:

A huge thanks to @BreakfastNews #lisamillar and @Mad_Morris for inviting me to talk about @encephalitis. We need to get the word #encephalitis more known around the world and for anyone diagnosed to know that you are not alone ❤️ #RED4WED pic.twitter.com/Stg3FMGtTL

— Karen Tighe (@karentighe) February 22, 2022

 

Sincere was four-years-old when he became ill with encephalitis. His mum told us: "He loves to see everyone wearing red as he doesn’t feel alone." Absolutely our favourite film of the day.

Actors say you should never work with children or animals. Communication Managers at the Encephalitis Society (which would be me) say you should never work with your colleagues. This was supposed to be a simple video wishing Ava good luck before a day full of media interviews. 

Finally, we asked our members what they would say to someone who was asking for advice about looking after their brain health. Watch this fantastic film from our members in Australia and New Zealand also visit our website for some more words of wisdom.

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The Encephalitis Society is proud to be delivering this year's World Encephalitis Day in collaboration with several generous corporate supporters. 

Financial support has been provided to Encephalitis Society as a Grant from Pfizer Ltd.

A gift in kind has been generously provided to the Encephalitis Society by Valneva.