Travel plans should mean getting your shots

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Feb 6, 2004 by Lois M. Collins Deseret Morning News

If your spring or summer plans include international travel, it's a good time to roll up your sleeve and get your shots.

Figuring out which, if any, vaccinations will be needed depends on the traveler's health, previous vaccines, where he's going and what he plans to do, say Barb Barwick and Holly Jones, registered nurses with the Salt Lake Valley Health Department International Travel Clinic.

There are places you can go next week, and you'd have time to get your shots beforehand. But other vaccinations take more time. Hepatitis B, for instance, can take up to six months to get all three shots and full protection. Hepatitis B isn't that uncommon, either. Countries that have a higher-than-average rate of the illness include a number of Middle East countries, Africa, China, Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, certain Pacific Islands, the interior Amazon basin and parts of the Caribbean, according to the CDC. A lot of Americans travel to those countries.

Even immunizations that require little time will build up more antibodies against illness if you don't rush it.

Yellow fever vaccination needs to be completed at least 10 days before you go and even longer is better. If the country you're visiting requires an international yellow fever certificate, you need to allow plenty of time.

"Things change in the countries from time to time," said Barwick. "Malaria borders may shift, or requirements for yellow fever change, not drastically, but enough that it makes a difference."

Of the vaccines typically provided at the clinic, the one with shortest duration is the typhoid shot, which protects for two years. It's one time when you might need to slow down a little. Someone who's not traveling for a few more months but plans to be there two years will want to wait as long as possible.

One location may require no vaccinations, another several. To visit Haiti, for instance, you need hepatitis A (B is also recommended), typhoid, polio and malaria. Current tetanus and diphtheria is recommended regardless of where you're going.

The clinic sees people traveling for pleasure, families going to pick up a missionary, corporate travelers and retired people. The nurses use a computer program that gets updated every week, so they know what illnesses are found in different regions of the world, what vaccinations are required and -- probably as important -- the latest State Department warnings for travelers.

Avian flu is a concern right now in some parts of the world because there's no vaccine, Barwick said. So they offer advice: Stay away from large populations of birds, open bird markets, any live birds. Walk on the other side of the street. It can be inhaled. If you have any eggs or meat from birds, it should be very well cooked. And use hand sanitizers or wash your hands often (in countries where that's not a health risk).

There are some rare illnesses that are devastating, Jones said, including rabies and Japanese encephalitis, both found in the Philippines, some parts of India, Cambodia and Vietnam, among other places. Someone staying in a nice hotel in the city would be less likely to encounter them than someone going to remote areas and staying a while.

Jones and Barwick see the clinic as a one-stop shop for travel- medicine preparedness.

"Travel agents are hesitant to educate people about the risks involved. They don't want to lose a sale if they tell too much," Barwick said. In some places, you can't get a visa without specified vaccines. "Private physicians do a fair job. And the Internet helps a great deal," because groups like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization offer comprehensive information.

But that doesn't help someone get the vaccine that's not used often enough to be broadly stocked. "And sometimes it's not the illness we can give you a vaccine for that is valuable, but knowing not to eat certain types of fish in some coastal towns or where to avoid the water," Barwick said.

To reach the clinic, call 468-2813.

E-mail: lois@desnews.com