Routine vaccinations and travel

Abstract

Vaccination is one of the population health interventions that have had the greatest impact on global health. Since the ground-breaking development of vaccines by scientists such as Jenner and Pasteur, millions of deaths and serious illnesses have been avoided every year through the implementation of routine vaccination programs and improved vaccination coverage. The approximate timeline of early vaccine development is given in Table 5.1. Following the success of the smallpox eradication programme, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) have introduced various initiatives to maximize routine vaccination coverage, including the Expanded Program on Immunization and the Global Immunization Vision and Strategy (WHO\UNICEF, 2005). Immunization is also a key part of the pre-travel consultation and can play a major role in the reduction of risks from vaccine preventable infectious diseases commonly found abroad. Travel vaccines generally include both mandatory travel vaccinations and other travel vaccinations for particular geographic or other risks. The pre-travel consultation is also an excellent opportunity to review the status of routine immunizations (Jong, 1999), which constitutes a country's national immunization schedule. Many of these vaccines are administered during childhood and may need to be updated or boosted. The WHO (2005) provides a generic list of these routine vaccinations, which may, of course, differ slightly from country to country (see Table 5.2).