ABCs of Typhoid Immunization

When you’re visiting a foreign country, trying new and exotic local food can be one of the most exciting parts of your trip. Whether you’re taste-testing Cambodian bay chhar rice or Colombian sanocho soup, learning about new flavors and customs is an experience most travelers look forward to.  But in some developing countries, ingesting local food or water can put your health (and your vacation) at risk by putting you in contact with foodborne diseases like typhoid.  Don’t worry though, protecting yourself from this nasty illness is as easy as ABC!

Typhoid, also known as typhoid fever, is a bacterial infection transmitted by food or water containing the bacterium salmonella typhi. Though the names are similar, typhoid is not the same as typhus, which is caused by different bacteria. Typhoid symptoms are generally divided into four stages, which, if left untreated, each last about a week. In the first week, the patient experience fever, headache and cough, with possible stomach pain and bloody nose. In the second week, the patient has a higher fever, stomach pain, abnormal bowel movements and delirium. In the third week a patient may experience more delirium and dehydration, as well as possible intestinal hemorrhage or perforation, both serious conditions that can be deadly.  However, typhoid is most often not fatal, so if these complications do not occur, the patient’s fever usually reduces in the final week as he or she begins to heal.  After recovery, a small percentage of patients become asymptomatic carriers who no longer experience symptoms themselves, but can still infect others.

If you’re about to go on a big trip outside the States and want to avoid a painful month-long illness, you should find out if typhoid is a concern in your destination country.  The Center for Disease Control recommends the typhoid vaccine for travelers to most south Asian and African, as well as some South American countries, and is especially important for those travelers visiting rural areas with substandard water treatment protocols. You can visit the CDC’s website and talk to your primary care doctor to find out if the typhoid vaccine is necessary for your itinerary.

The typhoid vaccine can be given orally or via injection. The oral dose is a live, weakened version of the disease given in four doses, and the injected dose is the inactive version of the disease, given as a single shot.  Depending on your own health and any previous medical conditions, you should decide with your doctor which version of the vaccine is better for you.  One main difference is that the injected travel vaccination needs to be administered two weeks before travel and should be re-administered every two years, whereas the oral dose should be given one week before travel and lasts for five years.

Neither the oral nor the injected version of the disease is one-hundred percent effective, though, so it’s still important to watch what you eat and drink while you are away from home. Typhoid is mainly a problem when feces or urine comes in contact with food or drinking water, so frequent hand washing and cleanly food preparation is a key component of keeping typhoid and other food-related diseases out of your system.

So whether it’s the African savannah or the Andes Mountains, it’s important to visit a travel health provider before you go, to get vaccinated against typhoid and other infectious diseases prevalent abroad. If you’re based in or around New York City, a visit to the travel doctor NYC is a convenient and affordable way to get yourself up-to-date on your travel immunizations and information. At Travel Clinic NYC, a doctor specializing in travel medicine will consult with you one on one, and give you the ABCs of typhoid immunization and other information important to your health and safety abroad. You can even make a same-day appointment online at Typhoid immunization in NYC.

When you lack the evolutionary advantage, get the malaria vaccination in NYC

According the Center for Disease Control, each year nearly 1,500 people are diagnosed with malaria in this country, mostly in travelers returning from high risk zones. Every year, millions of people from the United States travel to malaria endemic regions, especially sub-Saharan Africa, and put themselves at risk to the disease. Once infected, individuals can suffer from high fever, headache, anemia, and inflammation of the spleen. Those who develop cerebral malaria, when the disease attacks the brain, commonly suffer from insanity, unconsciousness and, often, death.

Yet people living within developed countries have the privilege of convenient access to anti-malaria drugs and vaccinations. A prospective traveler in the US can substantially lower his or her risk of contracting the disease by visiting a travel clinic and receiving a malaria vaccination that builds immunity against it. Not all countries benefit from these life-saving immunizations. 

It is likely that malaria has killed more people worldwide, especially children, than any other infectious disease. The World Health Organization reports that over 40% of the world’s population lives in malaria zones. Every year 300-500 million people are affected by it, including one million children under the age of 6 that die of it every year. The disease can have devastating effects on individuals and communities badly affected by it, with sometimes severe political and economic ramifications. But do local peoples, with little to no access to anti-malaria vaccinations or travel clinic, have defenses against malaria infection?

An interesting aspect of microevoultion theory is how it explains the existence of certain heritable yet terminal diseases that refuse to be naturally weeded out of human populations. Skeptics of Darwin ponder how evolutionary theory by means of natural selection supports itself in cases like sickle-cell anemia, which creates abnormal hemoglobin that in turn misshapens and injures red blood cells, preventing them from adequately carrying oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. Why hasn’t this unfavorable trait been naturally selected out of populations? And which population can benefit from malaria prevention NYC?

One important marvel is how people that are heterozygous for sick cell anemia, meaning they carry one allele of it by mean of their mother or father, actually have strong survival genes against malaria. The explanation is surprisingly simple: The malaria virus attacks the host by invading its red blood cells where it replicates and spreads by infecting other red blood cells. But individuals who are heterozygous for Sickle Cell Anemia do not have enough healthy red blood cells for the virus to infect and grow in, thus inhibiting malaria to grow strong and overtake host. Thus is it an advantage for people living in malaria endemic regions to be heterozygote for Sickle Cell Anemia, granting it as a favorable trait to be passed on to future generations.

And it has, with sickle cell carrier frequencies at almost 40% in some African populations, where malaria has thrived for thousands of years. You’ll see similar statistics in Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and Indian populations where malaria resides. Microevolution theory gives us a fascinating example of how individuals within these populations have survived malaria environments with the aid of a usually life-threatening disease.

Yet most Americans have not developed this advantage, and need to get a malaria vaccination before entering any of these countries. If you live in or nearby NYC, visit this travel doctor NYC located in Midtown. It sits in between 39^th and 40^th street, just two blocks from the Bryant Park and Grand Central transit locations. The staff will answer all your concerns and offer expertise advise about maintaining your health while your abroad. Call 212-696-5900 or visit Travel Clinic New York  to make an appointment.

When you lack the evolutionary advantages, let modern medicine pick up the slack. Take advantage of travel vaccinations.

The Top Three Reasons To Visit an NYC Travel Clinic

C’mon we’re all from NYC, we all assume we have a little more common sense the rest of the country. Our daily issues are more complicated than how many pinches of rhubarb it takes to ruin an apple pie or what to do if Mabel the cow’s udders are swollen and sore. Our issues are real, like how to pay our hundred-thousand dollar rent on time or the best liquids to toss on top of a sleeping homeless man in order to remove him from our front steps. If you are from NYC and you are planning on overseas travel, get yourself to a travel clinic to ascertain some really great common-sense tips to stay healthy and happy.

The neighborhood travel clinics has been a fixture in many a NYC neighborhood for years. Unfortunately, many of us just pass them by figuring, “Why add another expense to my already expensive trip?” First off, the pricing at a travel clinic is way lower than you would expect. Secondly, how much of a price would you put on keeping yourself, your friends and your family safe from illness and disease?

With that in mind, let us take a look at the top three reasons why visiting a travel clinic should be on this NYC resident’s travel itinerary:

Blood Clot, Mon

Many of us jaded NYC denizens do not realize the risk of just getting to where we are attempting to go to. Individuals with poor circulation or other medical issues run a high risk of forming blood clots in their veins while on an airplane. A travel doctor can discuss this danger with you. After ascertaining your medical history they will recommend how to keep these potentially fatal blood clots from forming.

Jet Lag

Jet lag is common in travelers who pass through time zones. Although there are many old wives tales out there offering cockamamie answers to this common problem, many of them are not based on science at all. After discussing your flight plans with a certified travel clinic doctor he can recommend many treatment options for jet lag that will not knock you out the game for a day and half. After all, vacations are usually for a short period of time. Why waste precious moments of it inside your hotel room sleeping off jet lag.

Vaccinations & Immunizations

Being from NYC you have either traveled the world like a cosmopolitan king or queen or you’ve never left your avenue in Brooklyn. Either way, the wide world still harbors many diseases that require serious protection. Many times that protection will come in the form of a vaccination or an immunization. Not all clinics or doctors can administer these shots. The fact is that only a certified travel clinic is allowed to offer this type of medicine.

It is also a fact that many countries in the world will not allow you entry inside their borders without a lawful certificate stating that you have received this vaccination or that immunization. Again, it is only the certified travel clinic that can provide this paperwork.

When it is time for any or all New York City citizens to plan that dreamed-of travel itinerary, they should log onto Travel Clinic NYC to get the ball a’rollin’. Log on and check them out. They are certified and located just two blocks from Grand Central Station—and thus easily accessible by bus and subway to all of us who reside in NYC. You may also call 1-212-696-5900 to arrange a convenient appointment. Remember, there are more than three reasons why visiting a certified travel clinic makes great sense.