Travel Vaccine Checklist
Do you dream about the white sands at the beach or travel around the world? Have you ever dream to go on an African safari? Don’t let you concerns about “Montezuma’s revenge” or a more serious illness like typhoid fever stop you from pursuing your dream.
And yes, it is true that visiting new countries can expose you to illnesses rarely seen in the United States, there are ways to protect yourself from the illness, starting with travel vaccines.
What Are Travel Vaccinations?
The travel vaccines is also called travel immunizations, it is a vaccine shots travelers can get before visiting certain country of the world that will help you to protect them from serious illnesses.
Vaccinations work by exposing your body to a germs or parts of germs of the disease it will protect against. But don’t worry, you can’t get the disease from the vaccine because the viruses or bacteria are severely weakened or dead. Your body responds to the vaccination by making antibodies that will protect you if ever exposed to that disease in the future.
Travel vaccines are safe and effective ways to help protect you from bringing home more than you bargained for.
How Do I Know If I Need Vaccinations?
Jeffrey Goad said a PharmD, in almost all situation, it is very rare for someone not to need vaccines. He discuss that travel vaccines are broken down into three types.
- Routine vaccines, are the standard adult and child immunizations recommended for the most U.S. population. Every time they see a patient, they check general routine vaccines. But many people are not up to date on their adult immunizations, such as the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccination. The reason is vaccines for diseases that are routine there, for instance measles, which breaks out until now and then, and it can be extremely common in other area or countries, regular vaccines sometimes become very important when traveling to other countries.
- Recommended vaccines, are travel vaccinations that can protect you in areas where there is a high risk or intermediate for catching certain illnesses. They also help prevent the spread the diseases from one country to another.
- Required vaccines, the yellow fever vaccine may be required for travel to certain parts of South America and Africa. The Saudi Arabia also has a meningococcal vaccine requirement during the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
Which Travel Vaccines Will I Need?
Below is a list of preventable travel related diseases vaccine that are not covered by routine adult vaccinations:
- Hepatitis A
- Hepatitis B
- Typhoid and paratyphoid fever
- Meningococcal disease
- Yellow Fever
- Japanese Encephalitis
Whether or not you must have one or more of these vaccines depends on any number of variables.
People assume it is one size fits all, for example you say you’re going to Thailand, and ask what do you need, but that’s not enough. Because according the USC International Travel Health Services there’s a business executive staying in Bangkok at a 5 star hotel has a completely different risk profile from a college student who’s going to backpack in rural Thailand. So the vaccinations recommended for these two people will be different, even though they are going to the same country.
That’s why you must go to see a travel health specialist. Your journey is not only important, but your medical history is important too.
Of course, it is good to let your doctor know that you’ll be traveling, especially if you have a chronic health condition. Unfortunately, your doctor isn’t likely to have all the vaccines you might need. It doesn’t pay for them to hold a vaccine such as typhoid that they would only use once a year.
Many travel immunizations need to be given in a series of vaccines given over a period of days or weeks. Plus, the vaccines take time to work. According to travel health experts, they recommend giving yourself 4 to 6 weeks to meet with a travel health provider about how to plan for your travel and to get any needed travel vaccinations.
To find a travel clinic at Calgary, Canada, you can go to the Calgary Travel Clinic.
What are the Steps Should I Take to Protect Myself While Traveling?
A travel health experts will recommend a basic hygiene and a common sense. For example, just doing a washing hands before you eat, or not putting your fingers to your face and in your mouth, that kind of things. There’s so much things that we pick up on our fingers that can cause diarrheal disease or food-borne illness. A basic sanitation or hand washing is extremely helpful. Travel health experts also recommends carrying around one of the alcohol-based hand gels. It is emphasizes understanding which foods are safe to eat and make sure that you’re drinking a bottled water or boiled bottled to get rid of organisms, or other bottled, carbonated drinks.
You may be stress using a bug spray and looking at other ways to protect yourself from insect bites in the countries where malaria and other insect-borne diseases are present. There are specific drugs are used to prevent malaria and must be used by travelers to certain country. The medicines will used for prevention can vary by countries, so it’s important to discuss about your travelling with your doctor.
Always remember, the important thing is to educate yourself as much as possible and follow any precautions carefully. The educated traveler will be a happy and healthy traveler as well as will travel again, and that’s what we try to encourage and enable.