Headed to the tropics? Visit your travel medicine expert first

Did I tell you I'm going to Colombia this week?

A week in Bogota and the rain forest. In June, the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is featuring Colombia, so we figured this would be a good time to visit.

The lowdown on yellow fever vaccine

Yellow fever vaccines are available only through designated vaccination centers. You can find these by visiting the Centers for Disease Control site cdc.gov/travel/yellow-fever-vaccination-clinics/search.htm.

After getting the vaccine you will get a yellow "International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis" card. Some countries require this card before they will let you enter: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Republic of the Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, French Guiana, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Togo.

The vaccine is good for protection against yellow fever for 10 years.

The stay-health basics

Most travel-related health problems can be reduced just by making the right decisions and taking basic preventive measures. Here’s some advice from Rosanne Galle, a nurse practitioner at the Enlightened Traveler in Paramus, and the fact sheets she provided during a recent visit there:

KEEP THE BUGS (INSECTS ETC.) AWAY

Many illnesses are transmitted by insects. So you can prevent catching a bug by not getting bitten in the first place.

• Wear clothing that leaves as little exposed skin as possible.
• Apply DEET or picardin frequently to exposed parts of your body.
• Treat outer clothing with permethrin.
• Sleep under a permethrin-impregnated bed net, especially when sleeping in rustic conditions.
• Make sure, before opening windows, they have insect screens in working condition.

FOOD AND WATER

Traveler’s diarrhea is always caused by something you ate or drank. So:

• Avoid eating food from dicey restaurants, markets, roadside vendors etc.
• Avoid buffets where there are no food covers or other fly controls.
• Stay away from "high risk" foods like shellfish, undercooked meats, dairy products, mayonnaise, peeled fruits and salads.
• Avoid tap water as well as drinks or ice made from it.
• Use sealed bottled water, or treated, filtered or boiled water for drinking as well as brushing teeth. Put a reminder of some sort in the bathroom to make sure you don’t forget about the teeth-brushing part.

JUST IN CASE

• Carry loperamide (Imodium) and an antibiotic in case you get diarrhea. Try the Imodium first; if it doesn’t work fairly quickly, take the antibiotic.
• Seriously consider buying travel medical insurance.

RESOURCES:

• International Society of Travel Medicine: istm.org
• American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene: astmh.org
• Centers for Disease Control: cdc.gov/travel

Travel medicine specialists

Here are some North Jersey facilities with travel medicine specialists who are available to give yellow fever and other travel vaccinations:

• Cliffside Park: EmergiMed, 663 Palisade Ave.             201-945-6500      , emergimed.com.
• Clifton: ImmediCenter, 1355 Broad St.             973-778-5566      , immedicen ter.com/vaccines.html.
• Hackensack: Center for Infectious Diseases, 20 Prospect Ave., Suite 507.             201-996-2031      , cidonline.net/travel.htm.
• Oakland: Journey Health, 373 Ramapo Valley Road.             973-947-6900      , journeyhealth.com.
• Paramus: Travel Health Solutions, 1 W. Ridgewood Ave.             201-444-3711      , travelhealthsolutions.com/aboutus.html.
• The Enlightened Traveler, Dorothy B. Kraft Center, 15 Essex Road, third floor.             201-447-8029      , valleyhealth.com.
• Journey Health, 106 Arcadian Ave., Suite C6.             973-947-6900      , journeyhealth.com.
• Maxim Immunization Center, 140 Route 17 north, Suite 272.             201-261-4153      .
• Park Ridge: The Enlightened Traveler, Valley Health Medical Group, 182 Kinderkamack Road.             201-447-8029      , valleyhealth.com.
• Pompton Plains: Chilton Occupational Health, 242 West Parkway.             973-831-5116      .
• Ridgewood: Employee Health Service, The Valley Hospital, 223 N. Van Dien Ave.             201-291-6436      .
• Riverdale: The Enlightened Traveler, Valley Health Medical Group, 72 Hamburg Turnpike.             201-291-6437      , valleyhealth.com.
• Rutherford: Passport Health of Northern N.J., 71 Union Ave., Suite 103.             973-484-4284      , passporthealthnorthnj.com.
• Wayne: Travel MD, 516 Hamburg Turnpike.             973-595-7000      .

Source: travelmed.com

The trip leaves today, and I recently got a sketchy itinerary and didn't have a chance to read it closely until a few days later.

When I finally saw the word "Amazon" spelled out before me, I had a forehead-smack moment. Tropical diseases!

Within minutes, I was on the phone to my favorite travel medicine center, the Enlightened Traveler in Paramus.

I think that travel medicine — like flying an airplane — is best left to the experts. The Centers for Disease Control may be a good place to start, but to me they're more of a portal than the answer poobahs. The latter title goes to your travel medicine clinic.

Who can keep on top of all those microbes and viruses, outbreaks and breakouts, new strains and new vaccines and new pills and old contraindications? It's only these guys, who do it for a career.

And I have enough to worry about when I get ready for a trip — especially a trip to an exotic destination. You don't want serious health risks to fall through the cracks. Because as travelers know: Sick happens.

So I delegate these worries to the Enlightened Traveler, and was especially happy when I heard the familiar voice of Rosanne Galle on the other end of the phone. Galle has been the tireless and caring nurse practitioner at ET for as long as I've been a tired and careless travel writer.

It was not so reassuring when, after talking with the doc, she returned to the phone and said I needed to come in the next day and she would find a way to squeeze me in, even though they were totally booked.

"We really need to get you started with the yellow fever vaccine," she said.

Yellow fever? It sounds so … so 20th century, if not 19th. Wasn't that a thing of the past?

Apparently it's alive and well in far-flung places where mosquitoes carry it.

Yellow fever was just one of the many health dangers I might encounter on this trip, I learned the next day after two hours of consultations with Galle and director of the ET program Dr. Gary Knackmuhs.

For a mere one-week trip to a country a mere four hours away by plane, I needed yellow fever, hepatitis A and B, typhus (another not-gone scourge) and tetanus vaccines.

The logistics were discussed: which arm to put which vaccine in, where in the arm it went, and how many shots I would get that day.

Can't I get them all? I asked, eager to be as protected as possible. I noticed doctor and nurse practitioner give each other a quick look, and Galle said, "No, come back next week for the tetanus."

I did think momentarily about all those unrelated invaders in my body, but by now I wanted all the armor modern science could provide, ASAP.

I sat on the examination table while Galle bustle