Travel Vaccination Shortages Globally a Cause of Great Concern for Dr. Bobby Ahmed

Dr Bobby Ahmed, travel health physician and CEO of Regent Street Clinic Group and TravelDoc in the UK and UAE, explains how the opening up of international travel, with relaxing of COVID restrictions, has led to a huge increase in demand for travel health services including vaccinations.

"The travel industry was clearly one of the hardest hit international sectors over the past two years but people are undoubtedly itinerant again now, with an explosion of international travellers seeking to make up for lost time".

In the UK in particular, this has come with a number of challenges, including vaccine supply issues with recurrent and lengthy shortages, meaning that some people are travelling unprotected against common infections such as hepatitis A and typhoid fever.

People are also having to change their travel plans when they are unable to get vaccinated against yellow fever, for example, where an international certificate of vaccination can be a mandatory requirement for some parts of the world.

Alongside pre-travel vaccination shortages, Dr Bobby Ahmed has also highlighted issues relating to shortage of post-exposure treatments such as tetanus toxoid vaccine and medications used to treat potential rabies exposure such as human rabies immunoglobulin. Rabies is a fatal viral illness usually caused by contact such as a bite or scratch with an animal such as a dog or monkey that have been infected with the virus. The fatality rate in unprotected individuals is virtually 100%, therefore pre-exposure protection is paramount for travellers heading to hot-spots for rabies such as sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent and SE Asia, including islands such as Bali.

Company Name: Regent Street Clinic
Media Contact: Megan Robinson
E-mail: bobbyahmed@hotmail.co.uk
Country: United Kingdom

Dr Bobby Ahmed recommends that "travellers are advised to discuss their individual itineraries with their travel nurse or doctor ideally around one month before travel so that a risk assessment and risk management plan can be implemented for optimal health protection whilst abroad"

This release was published on openPR.