Indian-Australian community groups have called on state and federal governments to put more resources into public awareness campaigns about the need for up-to-date vaccinations when travelling abroad.
It comes after the federal Department of Health confirmed that the number of reported cases of typhoid in Australia has increased significantly in the past five years, with many of the cases among Australians of Indian descent.
Indian-Australian organisations say some members of the community are travelling back to India to visit friends and relatives without having booster vaccinations against typhoid.
But health researchers say they are wrongly assuming that they are protected against the disease after they were vaccinated in childhood.
Michael Kenny has the story.
Typhoid is a potentially dangerous bacterial disease contracted from contaminated food or water.
Figures from the federal Health Department show the number of reported cases of typhoid in Australia increased from 100 in 2008 to 123 last year.
The Department says there were 135 cases reported in 2011 and over 100 so far in 2013.
Dr Anita Heywood specialises in infectious diseases at the University of New South Wales and has been doing research on the exposure of Australian migrant communities to infectious diseases as a result of overseas travel.
She says the Indian-Australian community is particularly at risk of contracting typhoid.
"They tend to travel for longer periods of time. So they're at risk for longer and quite often they don't think they're at risk because they grew up there and they think they're going home, so they're less likely to seek pre-travel health advice from a general practitioner compared to someone who isn't from India and is travelling there and if you live in a country where there is a whole lot of typhoid or malaria, you can sort of develop an immunity to that when you travel away from that country. Your immunity wanes and you can get the disease again."
Dr Heywood says there is a similar risk of developing immunity to some other infectious diseases as well, including malaria.
Doctor Yadu Singh is the President of the Indian-Australian Association of New South Wales and a medical specialist.
He says there is an urgent need to combat some common misconceptions in the Indian-Australian community about the typhoid vaccine, especially amongst older members.
"They lose the immunity because what happens is when you leave a place like India, Pakistan or whichever country and you are living in a place like Australia, over time, they lose immunity. That immunity is called herd immunity which is basically community immunity goes down because you do not have the same exposure on a regular basis. So that myth needs to be demolished."
Dr Singh says health authorities around Australia should be running awareness campaigns in community languages about the need for booster vaccinations before people travel to countries like India.
Another community group, the United Indian Associations, says many Indian Australians are neglecting to visit their general practitioners to get the necessary advice on vaccinations.
An association spokesman Amarinder Bajwa says he believes the Indian government could also play a role in getting the message across to the local community.
"This information can be actually given out through Indian consulate offices as well when people approach them for a visa or the travel agents can be given that information too and disseminate that information from the first point and if they haven't gone to their general practitioner lately, they can still get that information."
Infectious diseases expert, Dr Anita Heywood says any awareness campaign should also be targeted at general practitioners who work in areas of Australia serving large migrant populations.
Dr Heywood says while the risk has been more noticeable so far with Indian Australians, more research is needed to look at the potential risk facing some other migrant communities as well.
"The research that we're involved in as part of an Australian Research Council funded project is looking specifically at travellers visiting friends and relatives- that focuses on our Chinese, Indian and Vietnamese populations because they are our largest migrant groups. But we have a lot of newer migrant groups, particularly from countries in Africa and the Middle East who are also at risk of infectious diseases like malaria, hepatitis A and that sort of thing."
