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It is important to consider vaccine preventable
diseases that may easily caught during travel. From Robert Steffen’s chart,
it can be seen that the most common vaccine preventable disease of travelers
is hepatitis A. Typhoid is less common, but can be considered. Both
hepatitis A and typhoid have a wide geographic distribution. Some countries
offer a combined hepatitis A-typhoid vaccine. Entertoxigenic E. coli (ETEC)
is an important cause of travelers’ diarrhea and recent vaccine development
for cholera have shown some protection for ETEC, however this vaccine
offering dual protection probably has limited application in travel
medicine.
Robert Steffen’s chart of prevalence of various travel related diseases and
events can be found in Steffen R, DuPont HL. Travel Medicine: What’s that? J
Travel Med 1994; 1: 1-3. |