Getting immunized for travel
 

So I'm preparing to temporarily live abroad later this year . This will have me travelling to places mainly in Asia but will likely touch Australia and the middle East and Europe.

Ive done a lot of travel prior but never really had immunization past the regular shots we got in school and a HEP booster a few years back.

Has anyone else gotten the full gamut of immunization shots ? I hear there is a travel clinic but also that is is pretty expensive. Any recommendations?

First start here:
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel

Some medical clinics will provide immunizations for a fee, which will save you the cost of a "consultation" from the Travel Clinic. I know mine does and my benefits cover it so free vaccines for me!

For most places you'll need to get (or booster):
Typhoid
Hepatitis A/B
DPT
Measles

You might consider:
Yellow Fever (if you're traveling in endemic areas)
Malaria (not a shot, but taken orally during your visit)
Dukoral for Traveller's Diarrhea (also taken orally)
Rabies & Japanese Encephalitis if you're going to be in rural areas for extended time periods.

Good luck!

Hep and typhoid are usually enough to be safe

Don't do malaria pills unless you are going somewhere where it's REALLY bad. You don't want to fuck around with that drug.

I've only taken anti-Malarials once whilst in Burma. I had the weirdest fucking dreams ever and seemed like I was in a waking state while asleep too. The newer drugs are fine, I hear, it's the older ones that can screw you up physically.

Totally overrated. Just drink the local water and you'll be fine. :troll:

I went to Mid Main's travel clinic before I went on my trip to Asia. I did the consult with them and they provided a report on specifics of what immunizations to get.

As CivicBlues mentioned, there's a few standard ones. If you're not sure, I'd advise going to the travel clinic and doing the consult with them. I believe it was about $50 or so for the consult, and then whatever shots you're going to get on top of that. If you can get the DIN # for the vaccines they administer, you can usually check to see if your extended medical covers it or not on their website.

Note that some of these vaccines require multiple doses to be fully immunized (like Japanese Encephalitis which I think was 2 doses a month apart) so plan accordingly. I'm not sure if it's still the case, but when I was travelling in March, there was a worldwide shortage of the Yellow Fever vaccine and some clinics may not have them in stock.

Yup, Yellow Fever is still in short supply here (the vaccine, not the thing with Asian gir...nevermind)

Tried getting it last year before going to Brazil, I was told I could get a "half dose" that was somewhat effective....eh, I just decided to forgo it.

You can only get it at certain clinics as well:
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-heal...-columbia.html

OP, do this. Sipped water in Liberia and now I'm Ebola-man

Haha, had a girl from Australia in my hostel drink the tap water in Cambodia. I wouldn't risk washing my teeth with it either. Not worth the washroom trips.

Did anything happen to her?

If you've been in country long enough your body adjusts to the local bacteria in the water.

The malaria vaccines have crazy side effects and as far as I know they still aren’t 100%?

Had good friends of mine who lived in the Congo for 7 years for work, the father got malaria twice and the sister got it bad once, both had been vaccinated etc.

Typhoid - get it
Hepatitis A/B - get it
DPT - what is this?
Measles - MMR booster

You might consider:
Yellow Fever (if you're traveling in endemic areas) - exactly check the area, not needed for SE asia, we only got it for central america
Malaria (not a shot, but taken orally during your visit) - do not take the pills, take them only if you get it
Dukoral for Traveller's Diarrhea (also taken orally) - YES
Rabies & Japanese Encephalitis if you're going to be in rural areas for extended time periods. - check the areas you're going but we never took it and we went to more remote places than you will i can guarantee but it depends on the country i would think

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DPT_vaccine

You would likely have gotten it as a kid. Booster recommended every 10 yrs

You could always just believe in god, seems to work for all those moms

wait.....

Thanks guys. I'm assuming that BC MSP doesn't cover any of these shots and I'll be paying out of pocket.

Most of these won't be covered by MSP. The only ones that would be covered would be boosters of some of the covered stuff (i.e. tetanus)

Try to get the DIN # of the ones you might want to get and if you have extended health through your employer, check to see whether it's covered.

Don't you have to take the pills before and not after you get malaria?

The idea is to be immune to the disease, not to get it and cure it. A lot of people have said they'd rather get malaria than take the pills again. Civic says there's a new pill with no sides, but I haven't heard of it before.

Malarone is what I took, apparently it's side effects are much less than the other older alternatives

Read up on them all here:
https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/travelers/drugs.html

malarone has less side effects but is also more money

when you're travelling for months/year on end it gets very expensive

that's why i was saying, just get treated if you get it rather than taking the pills

How is pricing between the clinics? Man looking at some of the reviews for coastal health travel clinics is brutal on Google .

huh.. I always thought once you get malaria it's over and you'll have to take pills for a lifetime.

It's treatable... Justin Wren (the MMA fighter who builds wells in the Congo for pygmy people) says he has gotten it like 2 or 3 times LUL

He talks about the experience of getting malaria here

Treatable but not a very pleasant experience to say the least lol

If you don't take the pills I suppose you could drink lots of Tonic Water. That's what it was created for (though I doubt the modern version has as much as it used to). I can't drink quinine or eat anything with much in it (grapefruits). It is EXTREMELY bitter to my palate for some reason. Like vomit inducingly bitter. And I like other bitter things WutFace

gin was also used back in the day or thought of being a deterrent....or they just wanted to get drunk all the time