Preparation for travel with children and infants includes consideration of destination-specific risks, underlying medical problems, general travel safety, and administration of both routine and travel-related vaccines.
Pretravel counseling should ideally take place at least 1 month prior to travel, given the need to develop an effective immune response from any travel-associated vaccinations.
Given the prevalence of vaccine-preventable diseases in many countries worldwide, children should receive all routine childhood vaccines prior to travel, following the catch-up schedule as necessary.
Travel-specific vaccines should be considered based on the traveler’s underlying medical conditions, the travel itinerary, duration, purpose, and activities, all of which determine the potential risk of exposure and infection. These include rabies, JE, yellow fever, and typhoid vaccines.
Counseling prior to travel includes education regarding food and water consumption and provision of self-treatment in the event of traveler’s diarrhea.
Malaria prevention for travelers includes repellants for skin and clothing, bed nets, and chemoprophylaxis with mefloquine, doxycycline, atovaquone/proguanil, chloroquine, or tafenoquine.
Individuals who return to their home country are at the highest risk of travel-related infectious diseases, and certain issues need to be emphasized when discussing travel for this group.
Fever in a returning traveler The most common reasons for fever in a returned pediatric traveler are upper respiratory tract infections, pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and otitis media, with the remainder developing travel-related infections such as malaria, acute traveler’s diarrhea, dengue fever, and typhoid/enteric fever.