From Hotdogs to Hanoi Typhoid Vaccine for Those From NYC

It’s a warm spring day, you’re standing on the corner of 42^nd and Broadway deep in the heart of NYC, when your stomach growls. It’s a ferocious growl and it reminds you that you haven’t eaten anything since your granola-laced yogurt breakfast hours ago. You spot a cart with hotdogs, soggy looking half-salted pretzels and expensive bottles of perspiring water—do you purchase one of these mystery tubes of flesh-colored meat byproduct? Of course not! You rather eat a rat-ka-bob than catch typhoid in midtown Manhattan. You think about dialing the disease vaccine hotline and complain, but instead you stroll along, head held high and healthy.

Some may think the previous paragraph is over-the-top. Is it really? Disease vaccine is up to us. Consuming any sort of standing water is risky. Although the NYC Department of Health is not inundated by cholera cases originating from dirty water hotdog carts, rest assured that numerous cases of food poisoning have been traced back to those rusty metal containers of smelly frankfurter liquid. We have it pretty good by the standards of countries in the emerging world, but that’s not saying much.

Before anyone from NYC goes on an overseas vacation they should visit a certified travel clinic to be protected from diseases such as typhoid, cholera and yellow fever vaccination. Vaccine begins at home. Let’s take a look at typhoid in the emerging world, what it is, and what we should do if we find ourselves in a high risk area.

Typhoid or typhoid fever is a life-threatening disease caused by bacteria. Seventy five percent of all cases in America are from people who have contracted the disease while on vacation outside of the United States. Many of us from NYC have travelled around a bit. We generally consider ourselves a cosmopolitan people with an easy access to a travel clinic. Many of us may have even visited typhoid fever’s high risk areas. These areas include (but are not limited to) parts of Asia, Africa, South and Central America. Vaccine is more likely to be available in America, Canada, western Europe, Australia, and Japan.

Typhoid lives in humans and must be caught from another person or from food and beverages that an infected person has handled. It also can grow in infected water. One form of typhoid vaccine is to not drink the water in any of the high risk areas of the world mentioned above. Or use ice, or eat food handled by anyone exposed to the disease, or…or…or… You can see the problem with this type of vaccine. If you’re in another country’s culture it would be difficult to withdraw as completely as you would have to remain as safe as possible.

Thankfully, there is another type of vaccine in the form of a vaccination. A vaccination—or inoculation—is the quick, easy, safe and affordable way to keep yourself as healthy as possible when overseas. Whether a typhoid vaccination, a cholera vaccination or a yellow fever vaccination anyone travelling abroad should get a professional doctor from a certified travel clinic to go over their itinerary—and take his advice of modes of vaccine. Thankfully NYC has loads of them.

For one of the best in NYC log onto Typhoid Vaccine NYC. Located just several blocks from Grand Central Station, this certified travel clinic offers the best care available at affordable prices. Give them a call before you get a Vietnam travel vaccination and set off on that next overseas vacation at 1-212-696-5900. Stay healthy, stay happy—and remember—vaccine begins at home.