Japanese Encephalitis Vaccination

AlanT

Traveling with Tauck in October. Did anyone who has taken this trip take the Japanese Encephalitis vaccinations prior to traveling? We are getting conflicted opinions on this from Travel Health Centers.

British

We took the Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos tour earlier this year and did not get the vaccine, but we did use the deet spray and we were in the rice fields though we declined to get into the field to plant the rice or work the water buffalo and plow as some of our group did. I’ve done a quick read of the literature out there and will just reference one of them here
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Disease/japanese_encephalitis.html
and of course it depends if you are traveling in the wet season, look that up, I forgot what it said for October already.
Of all I have read, if it was us, we would not have gotten the vaccine. It is also a course of 2 at least 28 days apart and the second one should be given at least one week before you travel. So time for you is of the essence if you make the decision to go for it.
We have found in the past that Travel clinics are not only an expensive way to go but are very pushy in wanting to give you absolutely every conceivable vaccine out there because they make big bucks out of it. We do have medical knowledge that makes it easier for us to make these kind of decisions. An alternative for vaccinations is to go to one of the pharmacies out there that also give travel health advice and vaccines, it’s a cheaper way to go. And because we know our Malaria meds, we get a script from our regular family dr for those, we tell him what we want and how many and we pay the regular co pay. When we went to our first travel clinic, they charged us by the pill, naughty!
Enjoy this tour, we loved our slightly different one to you.

AlanT

Interesting. We have found our travel clinic, Passport Health, not to be pushy at all. Very satisfied with them.

travelingirl

British wrote:

We took the Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos tour earlier this year and did not get the vaccine, but we did use the deet spray and we were in the rice fields though we declined to get into the field to plant the rice or work the water buffalo and plow as some of our group did. I’ve done a quick read of the literature out there and will just reference one of them here

Hello. Going on the March 4th trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. Concerned also about which meds. Got the HEP A shot and pills for Tyhpoid. Concerned about if the malaria pills are really necessary. Were there a lot of mosquitoes where you went, especially in the rice fields? I plan to use Deet sprays and oil of lemon eucalyptus. Thanks for opinion. Lynda

British

Just posted on your other message. Oil of lemon is useless. Sorry, can’t remember about mosquito sitings now, it’s too long ago. If you take the meds, that’s one less thing to be paranoid about, although of course we use all precautions to prevent bites. Why are you so worried about taking malaria meds. They have been taken by millions of people and they have been on the market for many years. Always take during a meal or with milk.

joycesw

As I recall, when we did this trip the only place we were near rice fields was at the Four Seasons in Chiang Mai. It is pretty high end, so I do not believe mosquitoes are allowed into the complex!????