To live at what cost?

Most new travellers know that visiting exotic parts of the world means protecting yourself from some impressive yet deadly diseases. Most new travellers also know that you need to get a concoction of immunizations and other such drugs before you leave. What most new travellers often don’t know for sure, is how much this will all cost?

I just left my local village doctors surgery with not only a sore arm, but promise of a sore bank account!

The NHS provides certain jabs for free, which is great!

·       Typhoid,

·       Hepatitis A,

·       Meningitis C, and

·       Tetanus, diphtheria, and polio (which are combined in one vaccine) are free of charge.

Wonderful!

However, the following jabs are NOT free. Here are the current NHS prices for the other jabs that we may need…

·       Cholera - £50 per dose with 2 doses required,

·       Japanese B encephalitis - £90 per dose with 3 doses required,

·       Hepatitis B - £35 per dose with 3 doses needed and,

·       Rabies - £48 per dose with 3 doses required.

This amounts to a whopping £620!!! I can’t say I’m surprised, but I had my fingers crossed that it would be less. And just to rub salt in the metaphorical wound, there’s the matter of malaria medication to take into account as well.

·       Malarone £12 + 2.25 per tablet, of which you have to take 2 days prior to the exposure zone and for 7 days after (1 tablet per day),

·       Chloroquine - £2.20 for 20 tablets, of which you take two a week (on the same day) for one week before you enter the zone, for the weeks of your stay, and for 4 weeks after you leave the malarial zone.

·       Paludrine - £15.40 for 98 tablets, doses are 2 tablets daily for 1 week before, during, and 4 weeks after travel.

(Note: Some malarial parasites are resistant to some forms of medication, Thailand, Cambodia and some of Vietnam inhabits these mosquitos. For these areas you require Malarone. My experience of Malarone is good; few symptoms and at 1 tablet per day is easy to remember to take. Always check with your doctor what areas have the resistant parasites. https://www.malariahotspots.co.uk/index.html).

All in all I’m looking at having to fork out £720 for medication. Ouch.

My travel nurse insists that I take malaria medication and the rabies jab, and I agree with her. Approximately 1,500 travellers return to the UK with malaria every year and in 2008, there were 1,370 cases of malaria reported and six deaths in the UK. Also Cambodia and Vietnam are known for stray dogs. Dogs aren’t the only animals which can carry rabies, as most mammals can, bats included, so it seems malaria and rabies prevention is mandatory.

As for the other three, no matter how rare, is it worth the risk of not having the jabs? In any case, most of these diseases are scary enough for you to run crying to your nearest travel clinic, pleading with them to prick you immediately whatever the cost…  so it probably isn’t.

To be fair, a lot of these diseases are avoidable if you’re vigilant, and you take the right precautions. The nurse didn’t look like she was going to mention the likes of Cholera, Jap B, and Hep B until I raised the question, and she said it’s up to me to decide what I have.

So we’re back to the prominent questions; ‘How much is the risk worth?’, ‘To pay or not to pay?’, ‘To die or not to die?’…. Hmmmmmm.

Ewan.