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Immunizations - travel vaccinations - Management
When is cholera vaccine indicated?
- Consider vaccination against cholera for:
- Relief or disaster aid workers.
- People with remote itineraries in areas where cholera epidemics are occurring and there is limited access to medical care.
- No traveller should be required to demonstrate vaccination against cholera.
- The vaccine is not recommended for prevention of travellers' diarrhoea.
Basis for recommendation
- These recommendations are based on expert opinion from the medical literature [DH, 2006c].
- Officials at a few remote borders may occasionally ask people travelling from infected areas for evidence of immunization. Travellers who are likely to cross such borders, especially overland, should be advised to carry a signed statement on official paper that cholera vaccination is not required.
- Cholera vaccine only protects against the heat-labile toxin of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (LT-ETEC). The contribution of LT-ETEC to travellers' diarrhoea is variable and usually small. It is only one of the many bacteria, viruses, and protozoa that cause this syndrome.
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