|
Health and Vaccinations |
This page provides contacts for medical advice, details of vaccination requirements where to get medical supplies and what to take. Bear in miond thathe vaccination advice may now be out of date (December 1997).
Take your pick!
Disclaimer: We are not medical experts, and would strongly advise you to seek up to date qualified advice.
We found the Rough Guides to include excellent general health advice for travellers. For up to date details of vaccination requirements, some other sources are provided below. We found the prices for vaccinations seem to vary considerably from place to place. E.g. Rabies with my local doctor was £100, whereas Katie was quoted £105 and I have seen other quotes at £45. So - it's worth shopping around.
156 Regent St, London, UK, Mon-Fri 9am to 4.15pm, Sat 10am to 4.15pm. 0171 439 9584. I have to say we were not impressed with this service. Firstly you have to ring their help line on 0891 224100, which costs 50p per minute, and doesn't really help at all. Prices for inoculations are not particularly competitive.
Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Queens House, 180-182 Tottenham Court
Rd, London, UK, Mon-Fri 9am - 5pm, 0171 636 6099.
The advice here is probably the most authoritative in the UK and bang up
to date. I am sure many years ago that it used to be a free service, but
nowadays you have to pay.
The most comprehensive site is the CDC or Centres for Disease Prevention site. This is a US government site which is very heavy on detail, and it can be a bit difficult to negotiate, but it's bang up to date and authoritative.
We are being inoculated against the following:
A Yellow Fever inoculation is a mandatory requirement before even entering certain South American countries - a certificate should be carried.
Hepatitis B is transmitted via body fluids, (e.g. through snogging or sex with an infected person). Whilst neither Katie nor I are currently planning such precarious sexual exploits, we decided to have the jabs anyway, just in case we end up on the operating table in a dodgy hospital with dubious hygiene.
We were advised that a Rabies vaccination was a good idea if venturing far from the beaten track in third world countries, but decided against it. It only works to delay the onset of the full blown disease. If you do get bitten you still need to get more jabs and treatment.
We were also advised that a Japanese B Encephalitis vaccination might be a sensible precaution for certain remote parts of South East Asia. We declined this too on the basis that it is only really a risk for charity and health workers in frequent contact with very poor areas.
In addition to these vaccinations, we are taking an assortment of anti Malarial prophylactics. There is a lot of conflicting information about what pills to take for which country. After much investigation, we were able to obtain a definitive and up to date country by country guide, published by the Hospital for Tropical Diseases.
A few words on Larium (aka mefloquine) For India, and parts of South East Asia, we were advised to take Larium, the most effective anti-malarial treatment, available only on prescription, due to certain 'undesirable side effects'. Nobody seemed to be able to enlighten us on what these so called effects were. Eventually, I stumbled across an old article in the Sunday Times. To cut a long story short, the paper reports that the drug most often causes dizziness, sometimes causes dizziness, confusion or drowsiness, and in 1 in 10000 cases can cause serious neuro-psychiatric disorder. Most authorities, such as the Medical Advisory Service for Travellers Abroad (MASTA) claim that the benefits far outweigh the risks. An alternative drug, doxycycline, and antibiotic is a possible alternative, but it too has its side effects: in a few cases, it has been known to cause photosensitivity.
None of the drugs are guaranteed 100% effective and we have been advised that prevention is the best approach, so we have stocked up with DEET insect repellent, mosquito nets, and Katie's even got a rather fetching head net (NOT!).
The most essential thing to have is fully comprehensive insurance cover that will pay for you to be repatriated if necessary.
Aside from this, all of the guidebooks recommend taking a well equipped sterile medical kit and dental kit, containing syringes and needles, if visiting poor countries where such things may be in short supply. Most good outdoor shops, such as Field and Trek, or Nomad stock these. I would avoid the kits available from High St chemists, since these tend to be overpriced for what they contain and too bulky.
Some of the kits do not include very generous stocks of crepe bandages, (if any). If this is the case, it's worth taking these as a versatile treatment for many mishaps from sprains to fractures.
Where there is any risk of serious stomach upset, rehydration salts are recommended (eg Dioralyte) though you can make your own isotonic solution more cheaply using sugar and salt. Treatments such as Immodium whilst preventing the nasty side (or is that bottom) effects, can mean that the offending bacteria stay in your system for longer. The universal advice is to take lots of clear fluids (eg pure water) in frequent sips, since failure to do so can lead to dehydration, splitting headaches, dizziness etc.
We also took a supply of vitamin pills to tide us through in places like Nepal, where it can be hard to get a nutritive diet.
This shop is absolutely superb. Half of it is an Alladins cave of high quality and very sensible travelling equipment and clothing, the rest is a dedicated travellers medical centre / pharmacy, where you can buy everything you might need, all of it geared towards back-packers, i.e. it's compact and light.
So be sure you pay them a vist before your trip at:
Tel: 0181 889 70143-4 Turnpike Lane, London, N8 OPX
They do a great mail-order catalogue too with some useful equipment, clothing, footwear, hardware and medical stuff. (The models used in the pictures are really funny too - like your dad or something trying to look cool).
Snowboarding Injuries
None of our supplies helped us when I broke my wrist in France, but fortunately our insurance covered us for the first class medical care I received in Grenoble. We found it our supply of crepe bandages useful for stemming an incipient tendon pull injury in the ankle region, and a tube of deep heat for muscle pain.
Latin America
Katie went off her food in South America. We believe this was altitude sickness, though at first we thought it was a stomach bug, since it manifests itself as nausea and tiredness. Local pharmacists stock tablets which can help alleviate the symptoms, which in Katie's case lasted a couple of weeks. Altitude sickness can affect different people in different ways. Symptoms can include some or all of; nausea, listlessness, loss of appetite, breathlessness, headaches. The best advice is to take it easy on arrival at anywhere above 2500m. Don't attempt any strenuous exercise at all for a day at least. Avoid smoking, eating or drinking to excess.
The worst thing that happened to me was being bitten by a fierce alsatian dog in Uyuni in Bolivia, and I wished I paid for the rabies jabs, but I'm all right naooooow. Uyuni is a remote salt mining town on the edge of the Atacama desert, in one of the poorest countries in South America - not the best place to get bitten by a mad dog. Fortunately, it was so freezing cold I had verty thick trousers and socks on, and the bite only grazed the skin. If you do get bitten, you need to was the cut as soon as possible with copious amounts of cold water, use antiseptic or whiskey or similar. Seek medical advice immediately. I did the first two, but the nearest medical advice was miles away.
Immodium was very useful for blocking the occasional bout of diahroea.
Asia
In India and Nepal, we escaped without a single stomach bug, which is pretty fantastic. We ran out of antimalarial tablets in Thailand, but they are freely available and MUCH cheaper than in the UK - buy them out here - don't bother carrying thousands of them around with you.
In Australia I had a problem with a severe migraine, over 10 days, which I've never had before, and I hope never to have again. The doctor failed to resolve it. The optician was dumbfounded. It took an osteopath in Canberra to deal with it in the end - stress in the upper vertebral region, probably brought on by too much Australian TV.
Health and Vaccinations Last Updated: 23 October 1999 Web Page by Adrian Ball (adrian.ball@virgin.net)