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Published on November 05, 2024

Traveling plans? The CDC’s Yellow Book can help you prepare

Traveling plans? The CDC’s Yellow Book can help you prepare

The traveling bug has hit many of us, and the lure of far-off vacation spots beckons us. While the thought of escaping to new lands and experiencing new adventures is enticing, it is important to stay healthy while traveling.

For this, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) can help. It publishes a book each year that provides international travelers with a wealth of information about how to prepare for travel, staying healthy while traveling, vaccines you may need, what to do if you become ill, and more. This year’s edition, the CDC Yellow Book 2024|Traveler’s Health continues the tradition of providing the latest information for travel health and safety.

Some of the topics covered in the book include:

  • Preparing a travel health kit for your medications, especially if you have allergies.
  • Steps to prevent blood clots when sitting for long periods of time during travel.
  • Preventing food poisoning from seafood and the types of fish you should not eat.
  • The importance of bringing your own medications to avoid unknowingly purchasing counterfeit medications.
  • Travelers’ diarrhea, the most common illness related to travel, according to the CDC. The information includes tips for prevention and treatment.
  • Before-you-travel tips, including making sure you are up-to-date with routine vaccines and travel vaccines.
  • Bug bite prevention, including bites from mosquitoes, ticks and fleas that can spread diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and Lyme.

Tips From a Local Doctor

Gary Tratt, MD, an internal medicine physician with Cape Cod Primary Care, who has done travel medicine in the past, imparts a few additional tips to keep in mind:

  • Use insect repellant and keep as well-covered as you can to prevent mosquito bites, especially in the tropics. Many diseases that we didn’t have before are cropping up, like Dengue fever, that has appeared in Florida and Texas. Dengue fever is contracted through the bite of an infected mosquito, the same way equine encephalitis and West Nile viruses are spread here.
  • Stay away from certain food sources, especially buffets, because you don’t know if there have been flies or other insects around the food. Be careful where you eat and what you eat. Wash your hands frequently or use hand sanitizer before you eat.
  • Make sure you are up to date with vaccines before you travel, especially COVID-19, RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), which is very important for people with chronic disease or those over the age of 75, and Prevnar (pneumonia vaccine). You should have had the Pneumovax vaccine (Pneumococcal Polysaccharide PPSV23) or Prevnar 13. If you have had both, you don’t need Prevnar 20, but if you have only had one of the vaccines, then you need to get Prevnar 20. Everyone over the age of 50 should get the Shingrix vaccine. It is one of the best vaccines and is 98 percent effective. If you get shingles on a trip, you may be out of luck because the two anti-viral medications Valtrex or Famciclovir that fights the infection and slows the virus if you get shingles may not be available.
  • If you need to go to the hospital while on vacation, make sure it is for a legitimate reason. There are many illnesses that require treatment right away, including high fever, which could be Dengue or malaria and severe diarrhea that can cause dehydration. Most tour companies have a physician with them.
  • The COVID-19 virus is still causing infections and the contagion rate is much higher now. If possible, stay away from crowds. Weddings and parties are where it seems most of the COVID-19 infections with less transmission on planes and trains, according to Dr. Tratt.

“The bottom line is be prepared, be up to date with vaccines, use hand sanitizer or wash your hands frequently because you can pick up viruses from surfaces you may touch, and have your chronic disease under control before you travel,” said Dr. Tratt.

More tips for packing your medications before traveling are available here.

Routine vaccines and certain “travel” vaccines are available through the Barnstable County Public Health Nurse by calling for an appointment at 508-375-6617. Information is available on their website.