CNN
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Few things can ruin a vacation faster than illness.
But while a mild gastroenteritis is something most travelers will suffer from at some point, there are much more dangerous illnesses (including some that can be potentially fatal) that adventurers need to know how to protect themselves from.
Global concern is growing over the spread of MPOX, a viral disease formerly known as monkeypox, which initially killed one in ten people infected but now kills up to 3.3%.
In August, Sweden became the first country outside the African continent to confirm cases of lineage Ib, a newer, more severe MPOX strain that has now spread to Asia, with confirmed cases in Thailand and suspected cases in Pakistan and the Philippines.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the ongoing MPOX outbreak in more than a dozen Central African countries a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern,” the highest level of alert under international health law.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends two doses of the vaccine. Gineos mpox vaccine For people in the United States who are at high risk of contracting the virus.
Regarding Bite preventionTravelers are urged to use insect repellent and to wear permethrin-treated long-sleeved shirts and long pants when outdoors — the same advice as for other mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.
Both have also been in the news recently, but this time for more positive reasons.
Until recently, dengue vaccines were not widely available for travelers. However, in the last few years, Kudenga It has been introduced in the UK, the European Union and some other countries outside Europe, Dengvaxia Available in the United States.
But Dr Nikki Longley, consultant in infectious diseases and travel medicine, said: Tropical Diseases Hospital According to Hospital of University College London (HTD), the dengue vaccination is not the silver bullet travellers had hoped for.
“The Qdenga vaccine reduces the risk of severe illness or death if you get dengue a second time, but it offers little protection if you’ve never had dengue before,” she says. “In theory, it could increase your risk of severe infection.”
Longley advises people who haven’t previously had the virus to hold off on getting the vaccine while trials are still ongoing and instead take the aforementioned mosquito bite precautions, which everyone should do whether they’ve been vaccinated or not.
One traveller welcoming the arrival of the new Qdenga vaccine is UK-based travel writer Chris Dwyer.
After contracting dengue fever while on holiday in Malaysia in 2014, he developed symptoms of joint pain, weakness in his limbs, fever and temperature, which gradually worsened.
Dwyer was hospitalized and put on intravenous fluids, forcing doctors to monitor his liver and white blood cell count.
Though he eventually recovered, the experience was clearly harrowing, and having had dengue before, Dwyer knows he would be at even greater risk if he were to catch it a second time.
“I’m now seriously considering getting the Qdenga shot because I’m in Asia a lot and I know how dangerous it would be if I got sick again,” Dwyer said.
Meanwhile, headlines are grabbing attention claiming that malaria could be eradicated within a decade thanks to the development of an inexpensive vaccine against the devastating disease that kills 600,000 people each year, the majority of them African children under the age of five.
Malaria is a disease that is spread when a female Anopheles mosquito bites the blood of a malaria-infected person and then bites another person.
Infants in South Sudan and Ivory Coast received their first doses of the vaccine last month, and more African countries are said to be approving the shot.
While that’s good news for the world’s second-most populous continent, Longley said the chances of a malaria vaccine being developed for global travellers in a similar time frame were “close to zero”.
“It is not a suitable vaccine for travelers because it requires continued booster doses and exposure and does not provide full protection.”
She explained that the vaccine would reduce the risk of death among children, and that if the entire population was vaccinated against malaria, the disease would eventually be eradicated.
But a malaria-free world is still a long way off, and anyone visiting areas affected by malaria (which can occur in the U.S., but is relatively rare) needs to know how to do so safely and responsibly.
Annina Sandberg, founder of a boutique travel agency in Finland, is also keen to spread the message. Visit NativeHe has been exploring remote areas of Africa for at least 20 years.
A professional traveller, she knows exactly which anti-malarial medication works best for her and always packs a mosquito net when she travels to the African savannah – not only for her own safety, but also as a life-saving gift to the local community.
But Sandberg herself became ill and nearly died while traveling many years ago, and she wants to share her experience as a cautionary tale.
As a student, Sandberg was prescribed an antimalarial drug combined with an antibiotic before going on a year-long fieldwork among the Maasai in Tanzania, but after a few months the daily medication “started to seem unnecessary.”
“I noticed that local people were regularly catching and recovering from malaria, so I naively began to think that malaria was just a form of flu,” she says.
“Of course, it was much more dangerous than that and as soon as I stopped taking the medicine I got extremely ill with high fevers and body aches.”
Despite a visit to the hospital and being prescribed medication to treat malaria, Sandberg’s condition rapidly deteriorated and she developed a severe case of gastroenteritis.
After she was rushed back to the hospital, it was discovered that she not only had malaria, but also typhoid fever, a bacterial infection common in areas with poor sanitation and limited access to clean water.
Typhoid vaccines are widely available, and booster doses are recommended every few years.
Sandberg never let the hardships stop her from pursuing her bold venture.
“No matter how careful you are, you can’t eliminate all health risks when traveling, no matter what your destination,” said Sandberg, who had a rabies scare a few years ago.
While visiting the Datoga people of Tanzania, whose traditional lifestyle is sheep farming on the savannah, she found an animal in the flock that was clearly very unwell.
“I wasn’t sure if it was rabies or something else, but I was definitely very sick and did my best to avoid it,” she said.
But a few days later, Sandberg suddenly noticed the sheep standing right behind him, licking his broken paw.
“I became very worried,” she said, “and I knew I had to see a doctor as soon as possible.”
Because Sandberg was miles away from a hospital, she had to wait until she returned to Helsinki, Finland, several days later to get a post-exposure rabies vaccination.
This is crucial if there is a risk of infection even if the animal has been vaccinated against rabies. The first vaccination simply buys you time.
“If you haven’t had a vaccination before, we would normally say you should start treatment within a week, but of course the sooner the better,” advises HTD’s Longley.
She clarifies that the time it takes for rabies to develop depends on the location of the infected wound: it can take weeks or even months for the virus to enter the nervous system and reach the spinal cord and brain, at which point there is no hope of survival.
Because successful post-exposure treatment is a race against time, there have been cases where people have chosen to receive treatment locally rather than returning home, only to discover later that the rabies vaccine was not actually the cause.
Longley warned that in foreign environments, “you don’t necessarily know if the vaccine you’re giving has been tested or stored at the right temperature.”
“Rabies vaccination is very important because rabies is relatively widespread,” she said.
Contrary to popular belief, the virus does not primarily threaten Asia: it has occurred in more than 150 countries on every continent except Antarctica.
“There’s significant risk in places you wouldn’t necessarily think of – parts of Europe, parts of the Americas,” Longley said.
Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), a human viral infection affecting the central nervous system and endemic in many parts of the world, including far from the tropics, is another virus whose risk is often underestimated.
“There are areas in central Europe where we definitely recommend getting vaccinated against TBE, especially if you’re going hiking or camping,” Longley says.
“TBE is completely different to rabies, but like rabies, if you contract TBE there is no specific treatment and most people recover, but some become severely ill and disabled and some die.”
“If you’re someone who is likely to be exposed to a lot of ticks on a regular basis, the vaccine is well worth investing in.”
The cost of the TBE vaccine, as well as the cost of vaccines in general, varies widely between clinics.
Longley says while it’s worth shopping around for an affordable vaccine, it’s even more important to make sure the health advice you seek before traveling is the best possible.
“The reality is that advice is often more important than the vaccine you want,” Longley adds.
Childhood vaccination is one of the most effective public health strategies for controlling and preventing disease.
In the United States, the standard recommendations for children of certain ages, from birth to age 10, include several vaccines, including hepatitis A, measles, COVID-19, mumps, and rubella, with additional vaccines for adolescents, including tetanus and diphtheria. There is a complete list, However, it is also advisable to consult your doctor.
Adults are encouraged to keep a record of their vaccinations and when booster vaccinations are required. When planning a trip, CDC Travel Health Information Destinations PageYou should make sure you have all the vaccinations that are recommended and required for your destination and know other ways to protect yourself from the risk of disease.
