Preparing for a Healthy Trip Abroad: Inoculations and Vaccinations by Kirsten Anderberg
Preparing for a Healthy Trip Abroad: Inoculations and Vaccinations
By Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com/ Written 2004)
If you are planning on traveling, the issue of inoculations can be quite daunting. Depending on what countries you are traveling to, and from, the inoculation requirements vary greatly. It is often recommended that one contact your own doctor to find out what is recommended for your trip. But even then, doctors cannot be expected to know the inoculation requirements for all countries. So it really is best to do some preliminary research on the area you are traveling to and from, yourself. And then to bring that information with you to your doctor's office, to help give the doctor a sense of what you are needing and looking for. It is recommended you go to the doctor's office with this information 4-6 weeks prior to leaving, so you have time to get the proper shots.
The best place to find out what inoculations/vaccinations are needed to travel from the U.S. to other countries is the U.S. Government's Center for Disease Control (CDC). They have a travel page on their website at http://www.cdc.gov/travel/. The CDC site has updates on travel health warnings and travel precautions, as well as infectious outbreak information from around the world. The site also has special information about traveling with children, the elderly and disabled, etc., as well as particulars about certain travel modes such as cruise ships. The CDC also offers a "Traveler's Health Hotline" at 877-FYI-TRIP to help with your individual questions. It is recommended that all people traveling outside the U.S. visit this site before departure, for up to the date information on health situations evolving in the world.
Many state and local health departments in America provide travel clinics, to answer specific immunization and inoculation questions. These clinics often administer the required immunizations and vaccinations as well. The CDC site has a list of health department sites offering these services on its website. The health department clinics are reasonably priced, and often also are available in Spanish, as well as English. Besides inoculations when traveling, there are other topics relating to health that the CDC addresses. One such topic is that of food and water safety. Another topic that is important to travel health, but does not pertain to inoculations, is protective measures against mosquitoes and other arthropods that can cause chaos if proper protective measures are not taken. The CDC site also discusses the latest available remedies for travel related diseases, which could be useful information to look up when abroad, if you do end up sick. I would suggest carrying the CDC website address with you as you travel.
Two private professional organizations provide travel clinics as well. These are The International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM) and the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH). The ASTMH offers a list of doctors http://www.astmh.org/scripts/clinindex.asp ) who have travel health knowledge, but also highlights those who have received a Certificate of Knowledge in Clinical and Tropical Medicine and Traveler's Health. The ISTM also has a list of Travel Clinics to assist travelers in locating health care professionals with travel medicine expertise. Their list highlights doctors who have earned a Certificate of Knowledge in Travel Health (CTH) by passing the professional examination administered by the ISTM.
Another organization that you should investigate before travel abroad is the World Health Organization at http://www.who.int/en/. Their website is available in English, Spanish and French. You can learn more about the health concerns affecting individual countries' abroad there, and can then better prepare for those scenarios beforehand. Combined with the CDC's updates on dangerous health situations, this site will help you stay on top of changes occurring in the country you are planning to visit in the days before your departure.
You may wish to also contact your medical insurance provider to find out whether your insurance will cover required vaccinations and inoculations for travel. Some will and some will not. If your medical insurance will not cover the required medical preparations, your local health department probably will have the most economic prices for these services. You may also want to talk to your medical insurance carrier about what medical services will be covered while you are in another country, during a medical emergency. A vacation can easily be ruined by lack of preparation and improper knowledge of the area to which one is traveling. No one wants to spend a vacation battling illness, nor does one want to come home from a trip, only to spend it belaboring sickness brought home like a souvenir. Avoid unnecessary ills during your travels, through proper preparation and education.
Kirsten Anderberg. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint/publish, please contact Kirsten at kirstena@resist.ca.