Hi
I am off to Thailand in 4 weeks and have had the normal jabs need to go such as hep a and tyfoid, tetenus etc. But have heard various versions of additional jabs to get from lots of different people. So having heard so many different thing i paniced and booked them all. Rabies, Hep B and Jap enkephalitus. I had a reaction and collapes after my standard jabs but put that down to many different things. Having had my first dose of hep b and Rabies, the same thing happened. I am know wondering wether to continue with these as i am clearly having some kind of illergic reaction or reacting in some way and i can tell you its horrible.
I just wanted to know if i was being a complete freak and worring too much about these jabs or wether i just have to put up with these side effects? what have other people done??? I am only going for a month and spending minimal time in jungle type area, so i prob dont need these things. Im just so confused can anyone whos been though this give me some advice before i continue with putting myself through this!! thanks you x

I don't have any - but that is probably the wrong answer. I also think it depends on where you are going in thailand.

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Kiss
God laughs at people who make plans.

Nope, it's the right answer I reckon jaxw! Hep B is mildly useful if your planning to have a lot of unprotected sex with people you don't know too well I guess...or a blood transfusion maybe. You've already had all you need sarah...and before you ask, don't bother with anti-malarials either. If you're going to catch a mosquito born disease (very unlikely) it's far more likely to be dengue fever and there's no prophylaxis for that. Use a DEET based mosquito repellent.

Yep, its just that casual sex I need to worry about, because Dave is very casual about it these days. It's an age thing !

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Kiss
God laughs at people who make plans.

Hi there

My friends and I were planning a 3 month trip to SE Asia - the majority of which would be spent in Thailand. One of the girls was particularly worried about getting jabs for various different things so we all went ahead and got the normal ones (i.e. tetnus boosters, typhoid, Hep A). We also got malaria tablets.

We did our research after that and the more we did, the more we stressed out about what we could get if we didn't have this jab or that jab and how we needed to know the exact amount of time we'd be in malaria affected areas in order to have the correct amount of tablets. It all got a bit much to be honest.

Instead of stressing, I decided to talk to people that had actually travelled in SE Asia and get their opinions (as you're doing now). I found out that the majority of them never got jabs (and to be honest, it never actually crossed my mind to until my friend suggested we should). I was told by a travel doctor that there is absolutely no point getting a rabies shot (they are expensive and not even preventative if you are bitten by an infected animal!) and not to bother with the Jap jab either.

He also explained that it all depends on where you're travelling too - if you're doing hill tribe treks up in the North then you may need to consider getting more jabs than if you weren't too. If you're going to be in certain parts of Laos or Vietnam, then again, there are jabs you may want to consider getting that you wouldn't otherwise have to worry about. It's all too much effort if you ask me!

In the end, this is what we did...we all got our tetnus boosters. We all got the Hep A & B shots (I think it's A & B or it could have been A & C...can't remember now!), we got scripts for malaria pills and for a meningococcal vaccine (as there were serious outbreaks in parts of Vietnam we were planning to go to), we got our typhoid shot and a satchets of some sort of medicine we had to mix with water for Cholera. Do you know how much that all came to? Put it this way, WAY too much!

(okay, so I know this reply is a bit long winded but I wish someone would have said this all to me!)

Now, if you were to refer to the Lonely Planet Asia & India healthy travel handbook (which is very handy and very detailed!) then they suggest you do the following before travelling to SE Asia:

Tetnus
Polio
Hep A Vaccine
Hep A Immunoglobulin
Typhoid
Meningococcal
Hep B
Rabies (pre-exposure)
Jap B Encephalitis
BCG (tb)
Malaria Pills

If you were to get all of that done, you would, without a doubt, be not only insane, but looking at paying close to (if not more than) $1,000.

In final, I will tell you that out of the group I was meant to be travelling with, which for the first 2 weeks was a group of 12 people,
only 3 people got the jabs that I mentioned we were advised to get. The rest of them got nothing - not even the malaria tablets. I didn't end up going on that trip, and I was 1 of those people! They are over there at the moment, and I hear from them on a regular basis. Irnoically enough, the girls that got the jabs have been sicker than the people that haven't but it's just your average Asian sickness - the runs, stomach cramps, vomiting etc which is to be expected when you're off the beaten track in Laos and Cambodia! Anyway, by the sounds of things, they are all fine - even those that didn't get the shots.

My advice to you is assess the risk and make your own mind up about what jabs you have. 4 weeks isn't a very long time so I wouldn't get too carried away.

Good luck and have an awesome time!

Ali

Nice colour Ali

You know, if you take anti-malarials these can complicate matters; not just that it helps the virus become immune but also they do not 100% protect you and treating you for malaria if you have been taking these pills becomes much harder. The thing is to make sure you do not get bitten, which means making sure you spray yourself well with deet. Certain areas bordering Laos and Burma are more at risk although someone I know caught what we believe to be malaria in Krabi once.

I did not think there was a jab for Jap Encep.

Fio, for me having unprotected sex in Thailand with a variety of people need not be addressed less a person's IQ is lower than their hat (or something else) size.

The worldwide problem with TB is with a certain strain I believe for which there is no immunization for currently. I think the main thing is to be up to date with general innoculations. Also do not go around kissing any chickens right now!

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There are two categories of travellers, those that experience a country and those that take their home with them wherever they go.

Be warned, as with any forum, picking a fight with the admin guy is not recommended!

Thanks Mark! I am going to try and remember to keep this colour in memory of our last forum...that, and I don't like to be boring! :)

Just so you know, I don't know all of that stuff off hand (well, some of it I do)...I have the LP healthy travel handbook in my drawers at my office for some reason so thought I'd pull it out to answer this query! Needless to say, I don't have a lot on at work at the moment ... Friday afternoon - can't wait for the weekend! :)

Is it the colour or my eyes or the fact that I am hung over............. malaria tablets make you feel like s--t as well

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Kiss
God laughs at people who make plans.

hahahaha - very nicely put there Jax! They certainly do make you feel like sh*t!

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I still believe in paradise. But now at least I know it’s not some place you can look for. Because it’s not where you go … its how you feel for a moment in your life. If you find that moment … it lasts forever.

Mark, of course anyone who has unprotected sex in LOS is a mental midget with the IQ of a gate post! Hep B is transmitted much like HIV, anything that puts you at risk of contracting Hep B also puts you at risk of catching that too.When I lived in Africa back in the 80s the doctors at an expat medical center specialised in tropical diseases insisted my very young kids be vaccinated with Hep B which didn't make a whole lot of sense to me either then or now...they didn't engage in rampant casual sex at the time and they'd have died from AIDS by now anyway if they'd ever had the misfortune to need a blood transfusion there.

The same doctors also insisted we take nivaquine, the standard recommended anti-malarial for that area at the time. Well, guess what, we all caught malaria regularly anyway because of widespread resistance to nivaquine. Malaria is no big deal unless you are unfortunate enough to get the deadly strain, plasmodium falciparum. Then the ineffective anti-malarial you are religiously taking can kill you because it prevents rapid diagnosis. I know this from personal experience. I never take antimalarial prophylaxis now, wherever I go. If I'm going somewhere where malaria is endemic and a real serious risk (eg. sub-Saharan Africa) then I try and make sure I don't get bitten by mozzies too often and I carry a curative dose of Malarone with me (12 tablets) to take AFTER I've had a blood test should symptoms appear. A high fever, bad headaches, muscle pains etc might not even be due to malaria, could be dengue or something else.

Malarone is unavailable in most of SEA ...I think you can only buy it in Singapore. It's very expensive. However that's not a bad thing because it means that resistant strains of malaria won't develop too fast in SE Asia. In the highly unlikely case of you catching a deadly strain of malaria it's important there's still a drug around that can cure it.