Guelph Travel Vaccinations and Immunizations Medisys is one of the only
travel clinics to provide the complete range of
travel vaccinations in Guelph. Certified by Health Canada
to administer the Yellow Fever vaccine,
we also provide vaccinations to protect against
hepatitis A and B, Japanese encephalitis, cholera,
typhoid fever, rabies and many more—including
a new oral vaccination against travellers’ diarrhea.
All travel vaccinations are given by qualified
nurses specializing in travel medicine.
Although some vaccines are effective at the last
minute, others require multiple doses before becoming effective; therefore, it
is highly recommended that you book your appointment
4 to 5 weeks before traveling.
What is a Travel Vaccination
or Immunization?
A vaccination (immunization) is the prevention
or treatment of an infectious disease by injecting a weakened or dead
micro-organism (bacterium or virus) into the body. Some vaccines can
be given as shots and others as drops or capsules to be swallowed.
Your body respond to the weakened bacteria or virus by producing antibodies.
As a result, the antibodies protect you if and when you are exposed
to the real disease. However, most antibodies only remain effective
for a limited amount of time–anywhere from five to ten years; that
is why you need to receive “booster” shots every so often to replenish
or “upgrade” your antibodies. For the flu vaccine, the type of flu
virus that goes around changes slightly every year, necessitating
a change in the vaccine to protect against it, which is why you typically
need a flu vaccine every year.
Commercial vaccines undergo rigorous testing before
being put on the market; they are completely safe for most people,
and the risks are much smaller than the danger posed by the disease
itself.
Why do I need Travel Vaccinations? Vaccinations
are administered in order to help us
better preserve our good health. They
may be provided as a preventive measure
against a potential disease or in order
to protect us against a disease to which
we have recently been exposed. As children,
we receive several vaccinations on specific
schedules to prevent diseases that are
dangerous to us in youth; most are combined
vaccines such as measles-mumps-rubella
or diphteria-pertussis- tetanus-polio-haemophilus
influenza.
As international travellers, we may encounter infectious
risks not present in our everyday environment, thus new vaccinations
could be needed. Diseases such as hepatitis A can be a greater risk
abroad, and ailments like Japanese encephalitis may be completely
foreign to our home geography. In fact, for travellers, hepatitis
A is the most common vaccine- preventable disease.
Although it is rare[1],
some people may have adverse or allergic reactions to travel vaccinations;
vaccines are generally contraindicated in pregnant women–that is,
the risk posed to the individual by the vaccine is greater than what
it is intended to protect against. Before receiving any vaccination,
it is highly recommended that you have a consultation with a health
professional with expertise in immunization.
Make no mistake: vaccination is good. There is
no reason to risk suffering from a disease if there is a safe, easy
way to prevent yourself from getting it.
[1] In
Canada, this type of reaction has occurred less than
once in every 1 million doses of vaccine, and there are effective
treatments for this condition.
(http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/im/vs-sv/vs-faq_e.html)
We
offer the following
travel health vaccinations::