Hook it to my veins!

LonelyGamut

Hi all. I'll be going out to India at the beginning of October for just under three weeks and was wondering about injections. My route will take in Delhi, Jaipur, Amritsar and a week or so in the mountains. What imunisations should I be looking at forking out for? Thanks in advance.

candyrox

anti malarial tablets and other normal medicines for cold , cough etc would be enough.. i don't think you need any other .

theyyamdancer

You might find a doctor would advise you on being up to date with your Tetanus-Diphtheria-Polio jab as well as Typhoid. Perhaps also Hepatitis. Depending on which doctor you ask. None of these vaccinations are obligatory for travelling to India, but are often advised.

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"Wandering seemed no more than the happiness of an anxious man." - Albert Camus

Nick-H

You're going to have to go to your doctor or a travel clinic anyway, so best thing is to ask them.

In the mean time, check with the travel section of your National Health Service web site.

Nothing that anyone on a travel site about medical issues, such as this, says, should be taken as authoritative at all! <--Including that, of course!

bjp

If you read about the side-effects of anti-malarial drugs - some of them anyway, you might decide that you'd rather have malaria.

My wife and her parents once took them, and they got a bit crazy. Actually, my wife was ok, she didn't go crazy, but a week or so after she came home, every time she showered, she broke out in weals, her legs. It was quite a puzzle, we didn't know what was going on. Eventually she tried just splashing water on her leg to see if it happened, and it did. Eventually we found out that it was a possib;e side-effect of anti-malarial drug.

I stopped worrying about it years ago. I realised that if it was as bad as all the travel books make out, then all of India would have malaria.
I just use those electric things ...ALL-OUT, it works. The first time we went...it was Chennai, in the cool season, I learned that it never got too cool for mosquitoes. Quite amazing, every morning when I put on my shoes, that had been under the stairs outside all night, a little cloud of mosquitoes came out of them.

Nick-H

Many of us get really pissed off with posts like this, which, really amount to ignorant rubbish.

There are quite a few antimalarials. Some do, indeed, have such side effects that, if you mentioned them, I'd agree that I'd never touch them either!

But to lump them all together is completely ridiculous.

Hal

Go to a good travel clinic and they'll sort you out. Your GP may not be up-to-date on the regimen for the areas you are visiting.
FYI, I was advised to get DPT, Polio, Typhoid, Hep A + B, anti-Malarials, oral Cholera vaccine. Your mileage may vary.

Haylo

Tetanus, polio and typhoid will definitely be free, everyone should have those anyway, whether they're travelling or not.

My NHS trust also gives the highly recommended Typhoid and Hepatitis A free to travellers, most trusts do, so you probably won't have to fork out for those either.

As for the others (malaria, Japanese encephalitis, cholera, hepatitits B, rabies) they aren't so clear cut and largely depend on the areas you plan to travel in and how long you'll be in the area.

If you're making a single three week visit to places where you won't be a long trek from civilisation while in the mountains, my personal and "informed but not medically qualified" judgement is that it is not worth paying extra for any of those.

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The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful - E.E. Cummings, poet (1894-1962)

michael sunkist

Nameste, I've been going to India and Nepal for almost 30 years now. The only shot I get is a tetnaus shot every 8 years. Lots of dirty conditions you wouldn't want an open wound to get subjected to should you cut or injure yourself. Polio, malaria, etc. up to you. Big waste of time in my opinion. Happy trails

Nick-H

It is easy for those who live in countries where it has been eradicated to say that polio is a waste of time. I had not seen the effects of polio for over forty years until I came here. Polio is alive and well in India.

Even if one elects to go for the maximum recommended, it done in a visit or two. leaving one out doesn't "waste" any less time.

goingback

We have some very recent medical advice from our GP who is very much "on the ball". Tetanus, Typhoid, Polio, Hepatitus A, Japanese Encephalitus and Rabies (as we are travelling for 4 weeks and are going to the Andamans) Malaria prevention tablets. I visited India many years ago on just a Tetanus jab, no health insurance and had a tummy ache once in 5 months. I never had kids then, now we have 2 and we are taking them with us! Can't put a price on health. However, my sister was stretchered out of Calcutta, she had amoebic dysentry and some other undiagnosed thingy - she's ok and been ok since and really wishes she was on her way back there this year.

I had measles as a child (no vaccinations then for it) went in my eyes and I still have a "turn" in one eye - survived though! (at least IM'ers might recognise me now - no eye patch though, just a dodgy eye!

OceanTragic

Was the rabies advised due to the Andamans trip or was it the anti-malarials?

We weren't advised to get a Rabies shot although they said we could have paid for it, but we were advised Hep B, which we did. It's great that - apart from the Rabies jab - it's all free on the NHS.

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wonderwomanusa

Free in UK, perhaps, but certainly not in the US <sigh>

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The map is not the territory. --Alfred Korzybski

OceanTragic

maybe not but then again we have to pay for petrol