PLANNING WELL AHEAD IS ESSENTIAL – WHY?
To safeguard your health, protect your travels and protect your family and friends when you return back home, it is ESSENTIAL to get up to date travel advice and correct vaccinations before you travel overseas.
Planning well ahead is essential, as many vaccines, like Hepatitis A & B, Rabies and Japanese Encephalitis, require a course of injections.
Planning well ahead is even more important if:
- You have several family members travelling.
- You are travelling with children.
- You are pregnant or planning pregnancy.
- You are planning to go “off the beaten track.”
- You are travelling to higher risk areas.
- You are travelling for longer than 1 month.
- You have chronic health conditions.
- You take medication regularly.
- You don’t have any previous vaccination records available.
Your doctor also needs the details of your itinerary, as many countries have specific requirements and areas of medication resistance for malaria and traveler’s diarrhoea.
Some countries also require medical letters if you are travelling with certain medications, such as pain medicines, certain anti-anxiety medicines and those for ADHD.
Travel medicine is a highly specialized field in medicine now, so check which of our doctors can offer travel medicine consultations. When booking your next trip, make your appointment with your doctor, ideally 6 months prior to departure. Planning earlier rather than later can often save you money on appointments and vaccinations. This is because we can look at combination vaccines, plus “rapid vaccine” courses often need more doses. However, if you are leaving for overseas imminently, it is still beneficial to have a travel consultation and plan under these circumstances too.
Please note that travel consultations for all people are privately billed. A Medicare rebate will apply.
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