Vaccination is a perfect barometer to measure the travel activity of a territory. After the stoppage due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in the south of the province of Pontevedra, last year has been the recovery of trips to distant destinations. This has been perceived in the two traveler consultations that have reopened at the Vigo University Hospital Complex (Chuvi), as well as at the International Foreign Health Vaccination Center in the city. And this year they continue to rise. In fact, in the second they calculate that they will close at 2019 levels. In the first they perceive that, although people are no longer afraid of flying to exotic areas, the rise in prices is holding them back.
The Chuvi gave 1,855 vaccines to 1,213 travelers last year. It is triple that in 2021 – when 583 to 432 people were inoculated – but it is still far from the 2,900 doses of 2019. The preventive doctor Susana Alonso perceives that this year the rate continues to rise, although probably not enough to match figures from ago four years. From January to May, the time of least demand, 796 to 639 travelers punctured. “Travel has gone up in price a lot and the crisis has reduced people’s economic capacity,” she observes.
At the maritime station, Foreign Health immunized some three thousand people last year, 66% more than in 2020 and 2021. Its usual level before the pandemic was about 4,500, a figure that the doctor Begoña Álvarez considers that they still recover this year at the rate they are going – some two thousand in the first semester. “In other Spanish territories they will surpass it,” she says. In fact, in other autonomous communities there are delays of many weeks for this service, Therefore, tourists from Madrid, Catalonia or other regions take advantage of visiting the city to request an appointment in Vigo. They give it from one day to the next. They arrive, above all, demanding those of yellow fever, tetravalent meningitis or Central European encephalitis, which is transmitted by a tick –for rural areas of Germany, Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the Baltic Republics, Poland…–.
No wait
In Cunqueiro and Meixoeiro they try to keep the wait to one week, unfolding queries or taking advantage of gaps in others. The objective is that no traveler leaves without the protection they need or without the advice to prevent, above all, diseases against which there is no vaccine.
In both places, 60% of those who come to be vaccinated travel abroad for leisure. Dr. Alonso points out that the main destination for those who need punctures is Southeast Asia: Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia –Bali is the trendiest destination for honeymoons–, Thailand, Malaysia… Direct flights from Santiago to Egypt They have also skyrocketed tourists to this country. In Africa, Kenya and Tanzania are the main destinations. By work, the Seychelles and Mozambique or Namibia stand out. What this preventative has usually left are immigrants who return to their countries to see their relatives.
Leisure trips, cooperation and study scholarships shoot up 30% of vaccines to go abroad
In Foreign Health, 5% of its users are Brilat security forces and bodies, crew members of Juan Sebastián el Cano…) and another 5% are cooperative members, researchers or athletes. 30% come for other work reasons. The connection of this center – one of the two that Foreign Health has in Galicia – to the sea dates back to the 1970s, when it vaccinated emigrants who left for America. The workers that it now immunizes are mainly sailors and naval professionals.
Tips
The team formed by doctors Álvarez and María Núñez, with nurses Ana, Elena and Braulio, It also offers tips to avoid mosquito bites, one of the main vectors of contagion of worrisome diseases.
In fact, Dr. Alonso points out that medical advice is almost as important as vaccinations, because there are diseases that cannot be prevented with these injections. They advise them to use repellents or leave the air conditioning on at night to avoid mosquito bites. If you eat at street stalls, go to those with a lot of customers, even if you have to wait; they will have more rotation of the product and it will be in better conditions. The drink, bottled or boiled.
He The profile of those who go to the Chuvi traveler consultations is very varied.. Although couples are predominant, they have single people, families with children and large groups, with people of all ages. For long journeys, Dr. Alonso recommends that you go at least two months in advance. For example, due to the dengue epidemic that exists in countries like Peru. The public system has not yet approved the financing of a vaccine that has just hit the market, but the traveler can buy it at the pharmacy so that they can get it at the hospital. There are two doses three months apart. It is also good for avoiding problems with stock-outs. Right now, the main problem in Chuvi is to get doses against yellow fever. “We have to do the calculations very well and adjust it to the indications,” says the doctor.
The most common
Last year they put 29 doses against cholera; 56 for Japanese encephalitis; 7 from Central European encephalitis; 196 from yellow fever; 464 from typhoid fever –35 from the injectable–; 599 hepatitis A; 41 from hepatitis B; 112 from hepatitis A+B; 67 of tetravalent meningitis –for the countries of the Central African belt, mainly, for aid workers–; 19 pneumococcus; 51 from injectable polio; 8 for rage; 14 from tetanus and diphtheria; 13 tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough.
For malaria, a vaccine is not used, but a prophylactic treatment that can have side effects, so it is carefully analyzed in which areas the traveler will be. If they do not leave the tourist circuits, in principle, it would not be necessary. Last year they gave advice and pills to 186 travelers – this year, there are 71.
Another of the issues that Dr. Alonso warns is that there are some vaccines for which it is necessary to pay fees to issue an international vaccination certificate.
2023-06-29 04:00:22
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