Recently, we’ve seen an increased number of mission travelers and people who are either going overseas for religious purposes or humanitarian aid. Of those travelers, few have known that vaccines or prescriptions would be needed in order to ensure their safety. And, few knew what health practices prior to leaving the States and while abroad would keep them healthy and safe so they could complete their objectives. Sometimes, as in my own experience, it’s simply caused by miscommunication while planning, the lack of knowledge that anything might be recommended or required, or that the destination is currently an outbreak zone. At other times, it’s due to insufficient monetary access while fund raising. Unfortunately, in this case, health is the first item to be set aside in the long list of other needs. Travelers end up weighing the options of that is the greater need and have to choose between one item or another. Unfortunately many travelers, like me, put themselves at risk by choosing their health as a lower priority need.
I’ve been traveling extensively for the past 10 years, most of that time I didn’t even think about taking care of preventative health needs. It was during my travel to China that I became of the need to look into travel health services prior to leaving the States. In China, I had contracted a parasite from eating fruit. It took two Chinese doctors, one American doctor, a lot of time driving to different locations within China, a lot of money I didn’t really have, and 6 weeks on bed-rest eating only white rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner till I realized that I should’ve thought about how to keep myself healthy and safe before I traveled. If I had looked into preventative travel health services, I would have been informed of the current in-country diseases and recommendations for preventative vaccines and prescriptions, as well as safe eating and drinking habits and a plethora of other information to ensure that I was educated on how to protect myself, and I probably would not have contracted a parasite. Having to spend 6 weeks out of 3 months, half of my trip, in bed eating very bland rice and not able to go do anything, absolutely ruined my entire trip. Now, I’m a big proponent of seeking medical advice from a professional prior to travel overseas; I have done this on every trip since China and I have not gotten sick in any manner after making it a part of my pre-trip preparation and planning.
Passport Health continually educates the organizations we partner with, as well as the general public, in thinking ahead about the precautions they might have to take in order to be fully prepared before they depart. The cost of treating an illness is substantially higher (sometimes by 10’s or 100’s of thousands of dollars!) than if preventative care had been sought beforehand. For the most part, we are seeing more and more people think ahead and plan the need for protecting their health in with their trip as time moves on. This is a positive trend to be sure.
In short, any time you travel outside of the United States, you will need to seek preventative medical advice for diseases that are in areas where health standards aren’t necessarily what we’ve come to regard as commonplace here. Outbreaks of various diseases occur all over the globe every day. Our medical staff here at Passport Health Colorado specializes in travel medicine. We get daily updates on the latest disease and vaccine news in order to provide you with the most current information possible. We want to ensure your safety in every aspect that we can to make sure that you have an enjoyable and memorable experience while traveling abroad.
Written by: Holly McCluskie, Office Manager, Passport Health Colorado
