BBC 1’s hugely popular reality show, Race Across the World series 4 finally concluded this week, having showcased the landscape and travel challenges in 7 different countries. Whilst Alfie, Owen and other contestants may have had their travel health planning carried out on their behalf, what vaccinations and antimalarials might you require, if you took on the epic south-east Asian journey? Pinpoint Travel Health explains.
The contestants battled their way from northern Japan to Lombok in Indonesia, also passing through South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia, on a 50-day journey.
Enroute, to bolster their very tight budgets, they also had to engage in work, with this including duck herding in paddy fields and jungle forests. Stays with local families or employers were also frequent – some of these being in homes with poor sanitation.
The need for travel vaccinations and antimalarials
If you were trying to follow in the footsteps of the contestants, you would hopefully recognise that the countries involved are hosts to some dangerous diseases, against which you need inoculations or, to give them another name, travel vaccinations. To not have such protection could most probably invalidate a travel insurance claim that you made, with many policy wordings specifically stating that travel vaccinations and appropriate antimalarials are a must.
Your next steps would typically be confusing ones, involving Internet searches that could leave you with more questions than answers. You might be told that a vaccination is ‘recommended’ or just be told that ‘some’ travellers might require it.
Travel vaccinations for south-east Asia
Looking at the seven countries involved, you might deduce that a tetanus vaccination is required for all. But then, you could be left floundering, wondering whether you really need to protect yourself against typhoid, Hepatitis A and B, cholera, Japanese encephalitis, polio, rabies, TB (tuberculosis) and Yellow Fever.
You might not even realise that, whilst Yellow Fever is not present in Malaysia or Cambodia, both countries have a certification requirement for anyone aged one or over, who is arriving from countries with risk of yellow fever transmission and for travellers having transited for more than 12 hours through an airport of a country with risk of yellow fever transmission.
Similarly, you might dismiss the need for a Japanese encephalitis vaccination in countries such as South Korea or Malaysia, not realising that, if you too engage in farm labour or take to the paddy fields, as the Race Across the World contestants did, you are likely to need that vaccination’s protection.
Do you need a Japanese encephalitis vaccination?
On the other hand, you might pay for this particular vaccination for Thailand, despite visiting only the north of the country in February, at a time when the disease risk is not present. In fact, this particular disease is only present in Northern Thailand between May and October. Exactly the same situation occurs in the north of Vietnam.
With other vaccinations potentially dependent on the type of accommodation in which you stay and the access to good sanitation and clean water, it can all be very confusing.
Precision planning for travel vaccinations
This is where Pinpoint Travel Health comes in. Our unique new service, driven by cutting-edge technology and data from leading sources, including the World Health Organisation (WHO), and supervised by a team of top clinical experts, takes all the pain out of travel health planning. As importantly, it provides you with pinpoint accuracy with regard to the travel vaccinations and anti-malarials that you require, for you as a person, for the locations in which you travel (right down to hotel level) and for the activities or experiences you will enjoy.
You can plot your entire trip with this pinpoint attention to detail, using digital mapping to visualise your itinerary. The system will analyse each stopping off point, check it against the vast amount of data it holds and flag up any disease risk, even if that is a very recent outbreak.
How to know what travel vaccinations you need
You simply have to answer questions that enable the platform to assess when you are travelling, to where, your age, your activities during your trip and any health conditions, including pregnancy, allergies and current medications.
From there, once all of these variables have been brought together, you receive a personalised report. This is focused on you as an individual and your own unique trip. All of the vaccinations and anti-malarial treatments that you need to consider will be listed within the report. This then allows you to approach a travel clinic with confidence and let them provide the relevant inoculations or medications. The Travel Health Brief will even highlight the closest suitable clinics to you.
Travel health planning for TV production – and for you
In their previous roles, members of the Pinpoint Travel Health team have carried out travel health planning for TV production companies and film crews. The Pinpoint Travel Health system can do the same for any future TV programmes needing to protect contestants or crew, whether that is for Race Across the World or something else.
More importantly, however, for a cost of just £15, including VAT, for the precise and highly accurate report produced and personalised to you, it can take all uncertainty out of your travel health needs. It will help you avoid the risk of invalidating your travel insurance valid and can even possibly save you money on any unnecessary vaccinations.
Head to our home page at https://pinpointtravelhealth.com to start the process and get your Travel Health Brief today or use the the widget below.