By Christine Haran
If you ask 10 people to describe their ideal vacation, you're likely to get 10 different answers. While some prefer an elegant hotel on the Seine, others head to more exotic locales. To make sure that they only come home with souvenirs, travelers, especially those going to developing countries, need to take precautions.
Specific precautions will largely depend on your destination, and getting the correct immunizations and preventive medications may require that you visit your doctor weeks in advance. And some countries will require documentation that you have received immunizations. But much of what you'll need can easily be packed in your suitcase. Dr. Kevin Dieckhaus, an assistant professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington, provides health care and health care advice to international travelers at the University of Connecticut's International Traveler's Medical Service. Below, he discusses what travelers can do to prepare for international and local travel.
What are some of the infections that are most commonly associated with international travel?
The main categories are food-borne illness, mosquito-borne illness and respiratory illness. With mosquito-borne illness, the major diseases we worry about are malaria and yellow fever. From a food-borne transmission perspective, probably the biggest concerns, with regard to incidence, are traveler's diarrhea, hepatitis A.
Copyright 2009 NBC Health
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