Let’s say you want to go to Tanzania. Anyone travelling anywhere should have vaccines for Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B, Tetanus and Flu. In addition, you should have Typhoid, possibly Yellow Fever, Meningitis and Polio, Malaria medication, Dukoral (a preventative drink for traveller’s diarrhea) and/or Florastor(probiotic).

Carrying a vaccine record is highly recommended because if you get sick and go to a clinic in Tanzania, the medical staff will want to see what vaccines you have had in order to help diagnose you. You are not a good historian about what vaccines you have had when you are sick!

This mother did a couple of things right.  She took her teenager to a real Travel Clinic before she traveled.  Our consultants are up to date on all of the recommendations for altitude travel and are trained to discuss all of the choices.  When she received conflicting information from other parents and the group leader she called the Travel Clinic back and we were able to reassure her that what she was doing for her child was the right choice. Unfortunately not all people who profess to know travel medicine keep up to date or attend conferences where they learn what the best practices are.

So, who needs to worry? Any one who has not received 2 doses of vaccine in their lifetime. This includes any one born in Canada during the decade of the 70′s.  At that time we were only giving 1 dose, so check your baby immunization record to see how many you received.  If you do not have that record you can check with public health in the area that you lived from age 1 to 5. If you can not find a record of 2 doses than you should likely assume that you only had 1.

The other group is children whose parents decided against vaccine. This was a fairly safe decision as long as the child never leaves Canada because the rest of us vaccinated our children and generally the whole country has “herd immunity”. Now that those children are reaching young adulthood we are seeing them in the Travel Clinic with plans to travel the world usually on a shoe string.  This makes these people very susceptible to childhood illnesses abroad. If you fall into this category you should plan on at least 6 months to get all of the recommended vaccines.

For more information visit: http://www.cdc.gov/measles/travelers.html

If you are planning a trip and are also planning to get pregnant our advice is always stay on your birth control until you are back in Calgary. If that is not possible then get your vaccines before you get pregnant, visit a Travel Clinic and maybe alter your itinerary so that you are not at risk for some diseases that can be devastating.

Remember also that pregnant women do miscarry, or threaten to miscarry and so good travel insurance is a good idea as is an injection kit.  Bowmont Travel Clinic sells a great little kit with needles, syringe, IV tubing etc. so that you can have the local health personnel use your clean sharps if you require medical care in a third world country.

Visit motherrisk for more information:

http://www.motherisk.org/women/index.jsp

You can call Bowmont Travel Clinic and set up an appointment for Gardasil.  A referral is not necessary.

Visit the link to get more information: http://gardasil.ca/home.html

Although this person felt that she was quite ill it is very likely that she would have been even sicker if she had not received the vaccine. We know that vaccinated persons who do fall ill with the disease are usually much better off than those who didn’t bother with the vaccine. The studies on typhoid vaccine shows a 75% effectiveness with a drop to 55% after 3 years. It is important to know that boosters are important for on going protection. Because there is so much to know in the field of Travel Medicine we think it is important that you visit a Travel Clinic before each trip.

People are often surprised that we see typhoid in Canada.  In the USA it is the most frequently diagnosed travel related disease. And it frequently comes from Mexico. Although I do not have any statistics for Canada the result is likely the same. Go to the attached link for info on Typhoid from the World Health organization.

http://www.who.int/vaccine_research/diseases/diarrhoeal/en/index7.html#vaccine

There a couple of reasons why we should vaccinate even at the last minute as the traveller is stepping on the plane.

1. Some diseases like Hepatitis A incubate for 2 weeks in the body before they make you ill. This is also the time line for the Hepatitis A vaccine to take affect.

2. If you have been vaccinated before for the same disease the “booster” dose will take affect much faster than the first dose.

3. But the main reason is that if you left your travel health advice to the last minute for this trip you will most likely do it for your next trip. If you get vaccinated now you may have minimal protection for this trip but next time you travel you will be well covered.

Visit the CDC website for information on all vaccines.http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/

This is a live vaccine which means if you need any other live vaccine you must either get them together or 28 days apart. Other live vaccines are MMR, Zostavax and Yellow Fever.

For more information on the vaccine Bowmont Travel clinic is using please visit:http://www.gsk.ca/english/docs-pdf/varilrix_PM_20070110.pdf