In the news as of late, you may have seen the decrease in people opting for vaccinations, and for various reasons. Couple that with the increase in people traveling to destinations far from home, and it equals the potential for disaster. The diseases travelers can be exposed to in an exotic location are much less likely to at home. Most importantly, these diseases are ones for which humans have no natural immunity, and ones for which it is not likely you have been vaccinated.
Diseases that fall into this category are:
• Malaria
• Dengue & Yellow Fevers
• Zika Virus
• Hepatitis A
• Hepatitis B
• Ebola
• Rabies
Exposure to these types of diseases could pose a serious danger to your life, not to mention spoiling a seemingly great vacation.
Before you travel outside of your home country, it is vital to enlist the assistance of your physician in order to see what vaccinations are suggested (or even required) in order to visit where you plan on vacationing. Internet research can also offer assistance with country-precise vaccination requirements, patterns of specific diseases in the region.
As you probably remember from childhood, most vaccination schedules require more than one dose at precise intervals, some taking as long as six months to be completed. Other vaccinations cannot be given while on the course of another. You’ll have to decide which immunizations you’ll need and schedule your vacation far enough in advance to allow for completion of all scheduled vaccines.
Keeping this in mind, vaccination doesn’t always provide 100% protection. It does greatly lessen your chances of contracting a specific disease. Also, not all diseases have a corresponding vaccine; for instance, malaria is a deadly disease for which there is no immunization currently. The best advice is to couple vaccination with limiting your exposure within regions in which contracting a disease is a potential threat. Proper planning, research, and common sense is sometimes the best medicine.