Vaccination of travelers: how far have we come and where are we going?

Abstract

Vaccine recommendations are a prominent part of health preparations before international travel. We review progress made in the past decade regarding vaccines used primarily by persons traveling from high-income countries to low- and middle-income countries. The combined hepatitis A–B vaccine, the recently licensed Vero cell-derived Japanese encephalitis vaccine and conjugated quadrivalent meningococcal vaccines are discussed. This article provides updates on yellow fever vaccine-associated visceral and neurologic adverse events, indications for influenza vaccine in travelers, the rapid immunization schedule for tick-borne encephalitis vaccine, schedules for postexposure rabies prophylaxis, and new insights about oral cholera vaccines following the outbreak in Haiti. The future should bring vaccines for serogroup B Neiserria meningitidis, dengue and malaria, as well as an inactivated yellow fever vaccine.

Keywords::

• cholera vaccine
• dengue vaccine
• hepatitis A and B
• influenza vaccine
• Japanese encephalitis
• malaria vaccine
• meningococcal vaccine
• rabies vaccine
• tick-borne encephalitis vaccine
• travel vaccines
• yellow fever vaccine

Financial & competing interests disclosure

Lin H Chen has received research grant support from Xcellerex Inc. David R Hill directs the National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC), which charges a registration fee from yellow fever vaccinating centers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This fee contributes to running the NaTHNaC program for yellow fever centers, and to the general operating budget of the organization. Annelies Wilder-Smith has received speakers fees and has been sponsored to attend conferences by GSK, Novartis and Sanofi Pasteur. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.