YOUR big travel plans have been delayed until who knows when, so there’s little point in getting all your vaccination shots, right?
Wrong, say experts.
Vaccinations that require multiple shots within a certain time period should be seen through. “In this case, long-term protection can only be guaranteed when all of the vaccination rounds are completed,“ says professor Tomas Jelinek from Berlin’s centre fro travel medicine.
So if you’ve pushed back that trip abroad for a year, now’s the time to vaccinate yourself. This recommendation applies to the vaccines against hepatitis A and B, rabies and Japanese encephalitis, for example, says Jelinek. If you’ve already started the vaccination rounds, it’s better to just go through with it now, Jelinek advises.
He makes clear, however, that the vaccination regimes are based on the minimum amount of time needed between shots, so the last shot doesn’t need to be given so many days exactly after the previous one.
“It’s not bad to get the last inoculation a bit later, but it should be done. There’s the danger of forgetting it completely,“ he says.
The consequence: In one or two years, the vaccination expires again. – dpa
