Immunisation

Practicalities Health Immunisation Immunisation 

If you are travelling to a part of the world where immunisations are recommended you will need to consider which ones your child might need at least eight weeks before travel as some shots should not be given at the same time and you need to be sure the recipients have worked through any reactions.

A basic source of information is the Health Advice for Travellers booklet, [see above]. This gives general guidelines on essential and recommended immunisations but notes that advice should be taken for an individual itinerary as there are often different recommendations for different parts of countries and for this sort of detail you will need to contact experts.

As children are usually more up to date with their immunisations than adults they may be fine as they are. If your children do need extra shots it is worth bearing in mind the belief, as reported by Dr Larry Goodyer in the Independent newspaper, that travel vaccines tend not to be quite as effective in very young children. They are still advised but because they offer less protection extra care will have to be taken.

Even if you do not want to immunise or do not wish to do so according to the recommended schedule, some non-conformist practitioners recommend at least polio and tetanus if a child is travelling outside western Europe and north America. If you are travelling anywhere Yellow Fever is recommended, this is considered vital for Caucasians who are reported almost certain to die if they contract it and are unprotected. However, the vaccination is seldom given to young children and not at all under 5 months (sometimes 9 months) so you might prefer to delay your trip if your child is this young.

Whatever choices you make it is wise to take steps to ensure that your child's immune system is in tip top shape. If you use complementary practitioners they should be able to help with this but, as with immunisation, you should contact them about this at least two months before departure to discuss the options and start any treatment.

If you want to know more about alternatives you can contact The Informed Parent PO Box 870 Harrow, Middx HA3 7UW tel:/fax: 020 8861 1022. In return for an SAE it can provide travel information and pointers on alternatives. Note that fully trained homoeopaths consider homoeopathic vaccination to be an impossibility. It is therefore extremely doubtful that these have any value.

A final point, the Hospital for Tropical Diseases has estimated that travellers have about a one in 50,000 chance of catching anything they can be vaccinated against. The diseases they are likely to catch are those from mosquitoes and poor hygiene. This is why it is so important to take care with these.