With the holiday season underway, there has been an amazing rise in sales for Water-to-Go bottles – Why?
The answer is twofold :-
The first reason is that travellers – backpacker/gap year students, families, business people and the retired, are all fed up with carrying and paying for expensive, heavy, bottles of mineral water.
The second reason, a big surprise, is that stocks of the two major Typhoid vaccines have almost run dry…. and here is the amazing bit – one manufacturer did not start production until the summer and the other one not until mid 2014! So that leaves travellers unprotected, unless they want to take the oral tablets (which you must swallow in one piece) – something many people find difficult. It gets worse – the vaccines were the only solution for children under six years, so if they travel to many specified countries where the water is suspect, they have no protection at all. We get so many enquiries about what our bottles can filter so just to clarify… Yes, Water-to-Go will filter out over 99.9% of Typhoid!
Jane Barrett a qualified nurse, one of the partners in Jabs Travel Clinic in Caterham, Surrey said: “We are extremely worried about this situation. Our advice to parents of children under 6 years, is to reconsider the countries they are planning to visit before booking a family holiday and wait for vaccine stocks to be available. As a preventative measure, we are recommending that everyone takes Water-to-Go bottles everywhere. They are very popular and we almost sold out our first delivery in days.”
Typhoid fever is a bacterial disease caused by Salmonella Typhi is transmitted through contaminated food and water. There are currently 17million worldwide Typhoid cases each year – 274 cases per 100,000 persons. It is widespread in South East Asia, the Middle East, South America and Africa. Immunisation is also recommended if travelling to certain parts of Europe and Egypt.
If you are in doubt about travel you should consult a GP, your travel organiser, The World Health Organisation, Nathnac, Fit for Travel, The Health Protection Agency or the Department of Health.
