Travel Vaccinations for VFRs leaving NYC

Thanks to current travel flight affordability and availability now more than ever immigrants can maintain ties with their relatives abroad. By simply clicking a few buttons online anyone can hop on a commercial flight to reconnect with one’s original homeland, and first and second generation children are taking advantage of it. Only 12% of the US population is listed as foreign born, but 34% of Americans traveling internationally list Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFRs) as a reason for travel. In less than a 12 hour flight hordes of people are reconnecting with old friends and family in their or their parent’s country of origin.
Yet these types of travelers should be particularly mindful about their health while abroad, especially considering where their origins may lie. Immigration trends to the United States have changed in recent American history. New York City’s streets no longer feel the thud of the many Italian, Irish and German immigrants that poured in from Europe at the start of the 20^th century. Immigration patterns have shifted to other countries over the past 30 years, with more individuals and families coming from Latin American, Asia and Southeast Asia than anywhere else. Alas, these areas are at particularly high risk for certain infectious diseases such as malaria, typhoid, yellow fever, hepatitis A and STDs. Knowing this all travelers should get the proper travel vaccination before taking off. Yet VFRs seem less likely than anyone to get vaccinations, and thus disproportionately contract contagious diseases while abroad. According to the Center for Disease Control, 66% of typhoid cases seen in the United States are brought over by travelers who were visiting friends and family, mostly in Latin America and South Asia. South Asia also exports 90% of the paratyphoid cases seen in the United States. The CDC found that in 2008, 65% of the malaria cases brought in by people traveling abroad came from VFRs. These types of travelers have been found to be 8 times more likely to contract malaria than any other type of tourist. A large handful of travelers have died of typhoid upon returning to the US after seeing their friends and family. Why does this happen?Much of it is explained by the pre-travel habits of people visiting their country of origin. Persons visiting friends and family tend to stay for longer periods of time in high risk areas for disease. Taking advantage of free room and board, they also tend to stay in homes instead of hotels. This directly exposes them to the local lifestyle that often implies lack of water and food precautions and mosquito repellent techniques such as bed nets, all habits that put travelers at risk for infection. People visiting their homeland also tend to dismiss health warnings from a travel doctor about the area, for they feel their heritage and connection with it gives them some kind of immunity. It is true, to an extent, that many peoples living within their country of origin do develop immunities to local diseases, but this does not mean that these immunities will stay intact after years of separation from that area. You live in an area long enough your body begins adapting to the new environment. Yet VFRs tend to largely forget about or not know about this.All VFRs should take advantage of available travel vaccinations NYC recommended for the country they wish to return to. People immigrate to the US in part due to its accessible health benefits, and immunizations are a major privilege available in this country. Visit this NYC travel clinic if you live in or nearby NYC. It is convenient, reasonably priced, and operates with a skilled, trustworthy staff of health professionals. When you visit you’ll benefit from one-on-one consultations with a board certified travel doctor that will carefully review your travel case and access your health needs before you go abroad.
Do not dismiss health warnings regarding your home country because you feel they do not apply to a “native.” Visit TravelClinicNY.com to learn more about how to protect yourself.

Overseas drugs often counterfeit, receive the proper travel immunization in Manhattan

During the Partnership for Safe Medicines’ Interchange Conference in 2010, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg read an alarming statistic that “in certain parts of the world, somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of drugs to treat serious diseases are actually counterfeit.” Hamburg then emphasizes that due to limited surveillance she feels uncertain whether these shocking numbers even truly represent “the magnitude and scope of the problem,” which she believes “is growing every day.”

While Hamburg’s team claims to be making strides in protecting US citizens from imported tampered with medicines, her organizations cannot respectfully guard Americans who travel out of the FDA’s range of influence. This is certainly true for people who do not receive the proper travel immunization medications before venturing into developing countries that lack adequate regulation of transported drugs.

People especially traveling to sub-Saharan Africa put themselves at a high risk of contracting malaria, an infectious disease transmitted by mosquitos, with little assurance of receiving reliable drug therapy. According to a survey conducted by the World Health Organization in 2003 between 20 and 90 percent of antimalarial drugs that were tested in seven different African countries failed to meet quality standards. This proves troubling as every country surveyed (Kenya, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Gabon, Zimbabwe and Sudan) are considered areas endemic for malaria disease by the Center for Disease Control.

Reasons for this vary, but the WHO charges that changing prescription techniques, poor medical facilities and a growing criminal market all attribute to these areas distributing faulty antimalarial drugs.  As the malaria virus has mutated and become more resistant to medications over the years more physicians are combining different medicines for patients, which leaves more room for counterfeit drugs to get into the mix. Poverty in these areas also leads to underfunded laboratories, poorly trained physicians, poor drug handling and bad manufacturing practices. And as popularized in the recent “60 Minutes” nine-month investigation, there has been a recent acceleration all over the world in drug counterfeiting and cargo theft.

Fake antimalarial drugs in other countries are typically packaged to look like brand name drugs. They are ineffective usually because they contain less than the required amount of active ingredient, lack the active ingredient all together, or are cut with harmful substances. Medical facilities in poorer countries also tend to carry low quality antimalaria medication that use cheaper and not as affective ingredient alternatives. Another counterfeit technique is selling expired drugs that are repackaged with new expiration dates.

Untreated or poorly treated malaria can kill you, as it does over 800,000 people a year, according to the WHO. Nobody traveling to endemic areas should risk their health and life by depending on hospitals local to the area when they have access to more trustworthy clinics in the US.

If you are traveling soon and live in the tri-state area, visit this travel clinic in NYC to get the proper travel immunization medicines to assure you have a safe journey. You’ll be helped by a board certified doctor will years of experience in travel health. Wherever you’re going, travel medicine office nyc can provide you with all the information, health advice and needed vaccinations/medicines for you before embarking on your journey.

Visit get travel immunization in NYC office or call 212-696-5900 to learn more about protecting your health abroad.

Need to escape NYC for a while? Visit a travel immunization clinic first

New York City is like a jungle unnaturally overpopulated with primates. People hang from fire escapes howling at people walking by trying to cover their heads from dripping air conditioners and rove wads of spit. Cars move like grazing livestock, tapping the break as often as we blink. Commercial vehicles sound like elephants at stop lights and fart hot, black smoke into the face of men dipping into yellow cabs, which themselves seem like fifty different breeds of dogs bred to serve New Yorkers.  There are people everywhere dealing with constant invasion from the lesser species of rodents and insects into their homes. Our canopy consists of drying wardrobes and peeling advertisements while skyscrapers sit like mountain ranges that have been thoroughly mined within.

I sit in my living room in an old neighborhood in Brooklyn and I wonder: how many people have lived in my apartment and sat in this room dreaming of an escape?

Detox, let your pores breath for a while, and escape for a week or two after visiting a travel clinic in NYC. Pull your bathing suits down from storage and travel to Central or South America and do nothing but sunbathe and relax. Every New Yorker deserves a break from squeezing into subway cars and eating stale bagels every day. Spread out in the sand and order a drink at noon. Wake up late, read a book without people peering over your shoulder, walk outside holding nothing but sunglasses.

Now more than ever traveling is affordable and convenient. Commercial airlines offer daily flights that last no more than 15 hours nonstop, no matter where you want to go. Popular websites such as Priceline.com and Expedia.com offer discounted flights, hotels and coupons that make getting deals as easy as a clicking your mouse. It can literally take 15 minutes to book a roundtrip flight and a week stay at a resort in Rio de Janeiro. And because tourism flourishes the closer you get to the equator a large percentage of people speak English, the concierge at your hotel may even know someone from your hometown.

And by living in a tri-state area you have convenient access to travel immunization in NYC offices that will ensure you receive the proper medications and vaccines before you leave. Take advantage of pre-travel consultation from a trained travel doctor before going anywhere. Different countries, even different areas within the same country, all have unique health issues that travelers should be aware of. The best way to protect your health while abroad is by visiting a clinic that specializes in travel medicine for a consultation 4 to 6 weeks prior to leaving. Even if you’re leaving tomorrow you can still benefit from meeting with a travel health professional today to take care of any issues you may not be aware you’ll have when traveling to your destination.

Check out this travel immunization clinic next time that car alarm goes off outside your window at 5am. Just found yourself getting irritable at an older woman walking too slow ahead of you? It’s time you got out of this town for a week. If you need travel medicine buy your plane ticket, then make an appointment to meet with an experienced travel doctor who will prepare you for your holiday. Just take that train you know so well up to 42^nd street at either Bryant Park or Grand Central and walk a couple of blocks down to discuss your travel needs with their helpful staff.

It’s time for a real vacation south of the city, and I don’t mean Florida. Log onto their website or call 212-696-5900 to start preparing for your escape.