Peer Reviewed
Travel medicine update

Cholera advice before travel

Jonathan Cohen
Abstract
Cholera is a low risk for travellers; however, it remains a significant public health problem. Travellers at potential risk should be offered preventive advice, including in some cases the option of vaccination.
Key Points

    Until the early 1990s it was common practice for intending travellers to be vaccinated against cholera. The vaccine was often administered concurrently with the typhoid vaccine, and despite the frequent incidence of significant side effects, both doctor and traveller would feel somehow satisfied that the risk of any travel-related disease was now largely avoided. Certification of cholera vaccination was often required for admission to various countries, but it is now no longer recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) nor required by any country. The older injectable cholera and typhoid vaccines were taken off the market some years ago, and an oral inactivated cholera vaccine (Dukoral) was introduced.

    Picture credit: © BSIP/Diomedia.com. Vibrio cholerae.

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