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Nova Travel and Immunization Clinic recommends pre-trip consultation to prevent many travel related illnesses

The Nova Travel And Immunization Clinic recommends seeking travel health advice a minimum of 4- 6 weeks ahead of time.  The pre-trip consultation is crucial to help prevent many illnesses, some of which that cannot be prevented by immunization.  Whether you are travelling to Mexico, Africa or  South East Asia, you should plan to leave room in your budget for a travel consultation and immunizations.   The Nova Travel Clinic cannot advise over the phone, consultation is necessary to determine what will recommended for your trip (Age, type of travel, length of travel and previous medical history are all factors the travel health nurse will review before recommending vaccinations).  We offer a personalized service to ensure a safe and healthy trip!

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Study tracks diseases brought home by Canadians travelling abroad

The CTV article below also contains a video on the importance of travel health consultation:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/study-tracks-diseases-brought-home-by-canadians-travelling-abroad-1.1740910#

CTVNews.ca Staff                                        Published Friday, March 21, 2014 10:05PM  EDT
A new study says up to 70 per cent of Canadians who travel abroad,  especially to developing countries, return with some sort of illness — and many  of those cases are preventable.The study, published in the journal Open Medicine, looked at 4,365 travellers. Researchers documented a wide array of diseases they brought back, including malaria,  typhoid fever, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and parasitic  roundworm.

Dr. Andrea K. Boggild, an infectious diseases specialist at Toronto General  Hospital, said treatment, recovery and observation can go on for much longer  than expected.“We see syndromes called post-infectious irritable bowel and post-infectious  fatigue that can last weeks or months even after the infection has cleared by  the immune system,” she said. After a vacation and honeymoon trip to Bolivia with his wife, traveller  Andrew Higgins returned to Canada covered in insect bites.One of those bites started to grow.“It was just like a crater in my skin; a perfect circle that just sunk in a  couple millimeters into my skin,” he told CTV News. “From there it started to  grow and it probably got to be just a bit larger than a toonie before it started  to recede.”After weeks of research and numerous doctors, Higgins finally saw a tropical  disease specialist at Toronto General Hospital. The diagnosis was cutaneous  leishmaniasis, a skin infection caused by sandfly bites.  “She said we needed to get on treatment right away.”  Higgins was told if he didn’t get treated intravenously with heavy  antibiotics, the infection could spread to the rest of his body. But recovery  would be a long and complicated process. “I actually didn’t make it through the entire treatment because my kidneys  started to react quite poorly,” Higgins said.  Higgins has now moved on to the antifungal treatment fluconazole. “I am  taking 500 milligrams a day and I have been since December,” he said. Higgins made sure to visit a medical clinic before his trip, and took  medications to prevent malaria. But he may not have been as diligent about  avoiding insect bites. Doctors are strongly recommending travellers seek pre-travel medical consultation at least six weeks in  advance of a trip. But about two thirds of the patients in the study had not  asked a doctor for advice before travelling. Higgins has been told by doctors he must watch for any symptoms that might  be early indicators of the return of the infection.“I need to basically be monitoring myself for the rest of my life,” he  said.

With a report from CTV’s medical specialist Avis Favaro and producer  Elizabeth St. Philip

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/study-tracks-diseases-brought-home-by-canadians-travelling-abroad-1.1740910#ixzz2x0wOEWcT

This Post Has One Comment
  1. Hi, WAYNE GHESQUIERE,

    Thank you for sharing this post because many users don’t know about travel vaccination. It is always advisable to take all travel vaccines before 4- 6 weeks ahead of time of your travelling date for specific country where you visit.

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