12.02.2007
Travel Doctor
We went to the Travel Doctor clinic on Friday to get information on vaccinations etc for Nepal.
It’s not a bad service as they do know a lot about their vaccines, and you probably get the vaccines for cheaper. We also didn’t get charged a gap for the actual consultation fee, although I’m not sure if this was because he knew I was a doctor too.
Otherwise there wasn’t a great deal that I didn’t already know and wouldn’t already talk about to a traveller who came in to see me for travel advice ie.
1. Food hygiene
2. Mosquitoes
3. travel insurance
4. Safe sex
The necessary vaccines for Nepal at the moment are:
The usual suspects ie updates on Tetanus, Polio, Measles Mumps and Rubella
Hep A/Typhoid
Recommended - Rabies, Hepatitis B
Hep B is probably most useful in the event of an accident requiring an urgent blood transfusion in a country that probably doesn’t screen its blood supplies - or in travellers who anticipate mingling with the locals (or other travellers) intimately, so to speak. (Hopefully not an issue for us..!)
We chose to have Rabies shots, because there are so many dogs in Nepal, and because the disease is pretty horrible if you do get it - the virus can lay dormant for years and manifest in awful neurological sequelae many years down the track, leaving you ticking like a neurological time bomb… The uncertainty of it alone would destroy me! Plus, it’s pretty hard to get evacuated out to get hold of some Rabies immunoglobulin, which should be given within 24 hours of being bitten.
It’s a rather complicated affair starting with three shots then a blood test and a fourth shot if we don’t develop enough immunity…. which would mean that we will need to get the fourth shot while in Malaysia!! interesting….
Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt getting two vaccines in the same arm (I got Typhoid as well) and interestingly, the Rabies vaccine is a fluorescent purple colour! Cool!
