If you are searching for Vaccine and Health Information for your future trip then I think I have some good resources for you. I chose that image because it didn’t have a needle in it. If you would like to avoid a needle (or need one) then please read on.
First of all, each destinations around the world has the following criteria –
- Required
- Recommended
- Generally Not Recommended
- Not Recommended
I will try to explain those, but always pay attention to the medical advice that is available to you. I am absolutely not medically qualified in any way, so my advice stops at pointing you to the resouces available that will give you advice. I will give those resources below.
I post this because I have reasrched for my own family and I share the resouces I have used.
Those Criteria
Required
Required means a medical vaccination or treatment that you MUST have before you can enter a particular destination. i.e. you will not be admitted to that destination if you do not have evidence of this vaccination or treatment. There aren’t many, but there are some.
Recommended
Recommended means that you are being given medical advice to get a treatment. By not getting the treatment you are going against the medical advice available. There are many reasons why you might not want to follow the advice, so read the advice and make your own decision whether to follow that advice or not.
Generally Not Recommended
This is where it gets a little more cloudy. Generally not recommend means there are generally people that do not need this treatment, but specific groups of people with medical conditions might be in the ‘Recommended’ category.
Not Recommended
I think this is fairly obvious, but I will describe it in my own words. Most medical treatments carry inherent risk. Any foreign object or substance that enters your body, including food of course, can affect it. So, on the whole we avoid doing things to our bodies that are not necessary. If, for example, you are travelling to the UK and considering a rabies vaccination (Year 2022) then that would probably be an unwise decision because Rabies has been eradicated from the UK. Your risk factor would then come from the vaccine, not from the risk of finding a rabid animal in the UK.
It doesn’t matter much about how you feel about that image. It is real.
The #1 approach to mosquito is to avoid them in the first place with avoidance measures, clothing and/or repellants.
If a bug does attack you, the consensus is to brush it away rather than swat it. Many illnesses are transferred by bug bite, from the previous creature to you, via the insect. Brush it away, don’t turn it into an injection.
Resources
The resources here are mostly advice for USA nationals travelling to other parts of the world. If I have found other resources from other governments then they will be in a section below (no promises). I am in no way a medical advisor. I am an internet advisor, hopefully sending you to the people that know what they are talking about.
The CDC – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
If you live in the USA then the USA CDC is the ‘go-to’ resource for medical information about travel. If you have travel insurance and you go against the CDC’s advice then you might struggle if challenged by your insurance provider about your own decisions.
Here is a link to the CDC as a general guide to worldwide travel for US citizens. It probably applies to most people, but the guidance is specifically from the USA government for USA residents travelling to elsewhere.
Go to the site and select the country that you or your guest are travelling to and read about that destination based on the criteria above.