Be health smart in travels

Pack your bags. The summer vacation season is here. Time to fly off to a wildly exotic location. There is a lot of planning involved -- passports and visas to arrange, tickets, tours and accommodations to book, pet sitters to hire.

You may have also come across a daunting list of diseases your destination has to offer while you were reading up on your trip. And as seen recently with the H1N1 flu in Mexico, travel is not always a disease-free experience. Don't panic. There are vaccine-preventable measures to help keep you healthy on your journey.

International travel opportunities continue to grow each year, including travel to developing areas of the world that once were rarely visited. Increasing numbers of people from all walks of life are venturing abroad, some for the first time. The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that anywhere from 20 percent to 70 percent of international travelers develop health problems. The risk depends on where you go and whether you take a standard weeklong package tour in Europe or you trek off the beaten path for weeks of camping in Botswana. The degree of risk also depends on the preventive actions you take during your pre-travel planning.

Guidebooks are not always current when it comes to health information, warns Dr. Bradley Connor of the New York Center for Travel and Tropical Medicine. Information gathered well in advance of publication may be inaccurate or incomplete.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov/travel) provides broad destination overviews and travel health information. Another great place to find accurate travel health information is our local health department. Taking into account the variables unique to each traveler, our health department immunization nurses will provide the latest travel vaccine and medication information to help you prepare for your trip.

So, which vaccines should you get before you travel? The vaccinations you need depends on a number of factors, including your destination, whether you will be spending time in rural or urban areas, the season of the year you are traveling, length of stay, how many countries you are visiting, your age, health status, and previous immunizations. While your health care provider will tell you which ones you should have, it's best to be aware of them ahead of time.

Vaccinations fall into three categories, according to the CDC:

- Routine vaccinations. Whether you travel or not, be sure that you and your family are up to date on your routine vaccinations - influenza, polio, chickenpox (or varicella), measles/ mumps/rubella (MMR), diphtheria/ pertussis/tetanus (DPT) are given at all stages of life. These vaccines are necessary for protection from diseases that are still common in many parts of the world. For example, polio has been eradicated in many parts of the world, however polio is a risk in various regions of Africa and Asia. And since the beginning of 2009, CDC reports several outbreaks of measles worldwide, including Europe, Australia and areas of Southeast Asia.

- Recommended vaccinations are given to protect travelers against disease that routinely occur in other parts of the world. Depending on your itinerary, these vaccines are recommended to protect travelers from illnesses present in other parts of the world and to prevent the importation of infectious diseases across international boarders. They may include: hepatitis A, hepatitis B, typhoid, yellow fever, rabies, meningococcal, Japanese encephalitis.

- Required vaccinations: The only required vaccine, according to the World Health Organization is yellow fever vaccination for travel to certain countries in Africa and South America. The government of Saudi Arabia requires meningococcal vaccination for travel during the annual pilgrimage, Hajj.

Other diseases, such as mosquito-born malaria do not have a vaccine available, but prescription anti-malarial drugs can help prevent the disease. The health department nurses will discuss options with you, and then talk to your health-care provider for prescriptions.

The CDC and the health department nurses advise you to see your health-care provider or stop by the health department at least 4 to 6 weeks before your trip. This allows time for your vaccines to take effect. Even if you have less than four weeks before you leave, you should still consult with the health department nurses for vaccine and travel health information on how to protect yourself from illness while traveling.

Armed with the proper immunizations, you can travel almost anywhere and come home healthy.

Call the health department immunization nurses for a free travel vaccination consultation at 443-2584. When visiting the health department for travel vaccines, allow for about an hour for your appointment. The health department offers a walk-in immunization clinic every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Melanie Reynolds is the Health Officer at the Lewis and Clark City-County Health Department.