Spring Break is almost here, and we suspect traveling may be in your near future! Traveling is well-established as being both spiritually and emotionally healthy. However, between flying in a congested airplane and encountering a near-infinite number of foreign bacteria, traveling can be unhealthy if you’re not prepared.
*Also, there’s a resurgence of a new highly contagious and sometimes deadly threat that we’d long ago thought we’d beaten: measles. Certain states, such as pockets of New York, Washington and Oregon have recently experienced measles outbreaks, and if traveling overseas, there have been outbreaks in certain countries as well. Very important to make sure your children get their MMR vaccine prior to traveling.
In order to ensure that your body’s safe enough to combat the health risks associated with international and domestic travel, you’ll need to make sure you have the medicine, information, and vaccines necessary to make your trip enjoyable and risk free, and also to make sure that you don’t bring back any infectious diseases to spread to your loved ones. So without any further ado, here is your travel vaccine checklist for spring break!
Plan ahead for your travel vaccines
Many travel immunizations need to be given in a series of shots given over a period of days or weeks, plus, vaccines take time to work. Travel health experts recommend giving yourself 4 to 6 weeks to meet with a travel health provider about how to plan for your travel and to get any needed travel vaccinations.
Recommended vaccines are travel vaccines that can protect you in areas where there is an intermediate or high risk for contracting certain illnesses. They also help prevent the spread of diseases from one country to another so that even if you do not contract the illness, you will not become a carrier of it back to your home country.
Required vaccines: the yellow fever vaccine may be required for travel to certain parts of Africa and South America. According to Goad, Saudi Arabia also has a meningococcal vaccine requirement during the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
AFC Urgent Care’s travel vaccines and medicine program
- Medical screening, consultation and assessment
- Medicines for malaria, diarrhea, motion sickness, & altitude sickness
- Required & recommended travel vaccines such as:
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Typhoid vaccine
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Tetanus-diphtheria vaccine
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Meningococcal meningitis vaccine
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Polio vaccine
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Hepatitis-A vaccine
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Hepatitis-B vaccine
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Japanese encephalitis vaccine
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MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine
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Pneumococcal pneumonia vaccine
- Yellow Fever vaccine
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Coming back from spring break
If you are not feeling well after your trip, you may need to seek a medical professional. You may have picked up a virus or other infection during your trip, even though you do not have symptoms until you return. Be sure to tell your doctor about your travel, including where you went and what you did on your trip. This will help your doctor understand your symptoms to consider infections and illnesses that are rarely found in the U.S.
Walk right into our urgent care center, no appointment necessary for your travel consultation and vaccines, at 1030 Boulevard, West Hartford, CT 06119-1801. At AFC Urgent Care West Hartford, we are open 7 days a week and ready to treat you. You can save time by checking in online and we accept most insurances.
