You need to carefully prepare for traveling to any country. If you are planning a trip to India, you should find out in advance whether mandatory vaccinations are required for traveling abroad.
Tourism is not only exciting and educational, but also dangerous.
There is a risk of contracting serious diseases that can lead to disastrous consequences.
Do I need to get vaccinated?
If a person goes on a tour of GOA and stays there for no more than ten days, then there is no need to get vaccinated at all. Tourists traveling to India are not required by law to be vaccinated. There are no mandatory vaccinations.
But doctors recommend administering a number of vaccines to avoid infection.
When deciding whether to vaccinate, consider the following:
- epidemiological situation in the state and region where the trip is planned;
- length of stay in a foreign country;
- state of your own health (perhaps some vaccinations are contraindicated, and certain vaccines must be administered without fail.
What vaccinations do you need to get?
List of vaccines that are recommended before travel:
CCP (measles, rubella, mumps). If vaccination has not been carried out previously, two doses of serum are administered.- Tetanus-diphtheria. The vaccination is done once every ten years. Before traveling, you need to find out if your immunization deadline has arrived.
- Flu. The serum is recommended to be administered if the trip is planned for the period from the beginning of November to the end of April. Elderly people are at risk.
- Hepatitis A and B. All travelers should get these vaccinations.
- Typhoid fever. All people traveling to India are recommended to get vaccinated.
- Rabies vaccination. Needed for those who are going on vacation in rural areas, where there are a lot of animals and there is a risk of encountering bats.
- Tick-borne encephalitis. The introduction of the vaccine is recommended for tourists traveling in the spring and summer.
- Chicken pox. Everyone who has not had it before should be vaccinated.
Polio. Children are vaccinated according to the schedule, and adults need to take care of the administration of this drug before departure.- Japanese encephalitis. Immunization is needed for people planning to stay in rural areas for more than a month.
- Meningococcal infection. Vaccination is recommended before traveling to the states of Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya.
- Yellow fever. There is a risk of developing this disease, so immunization is strongly recommended.
India is ready to vaccinate the whole world. But I started with myself
“The world’s largest democracy” began on January 16 “the most massive vaccination in the history of mankind” - 300 million people should be vaccinated in India by July. But this is not the limit, local authorities emphasize: they are ready to help vaccinate the entire planet against coronavirus. What is the promise based on and how does the experiment on yourself go?
Evgeny Pakhomov, corr. TASS in New Delhi, especially for Ogonyok
“I want to give a guarantee to the world community. The production and supply of vaccines in India will be used to help all humanity fight this crisis,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made this statement back in September at the 75th session of the UN General Assembly.
And he also noted that India, “the largest vaccine-producing country in the world,” is ready to help all other states in the development of vaccine storage and transportation systems. New Delhi, he said, is always ready to share its experience.
The statements of the head of government are not bragging, and they did not appear out of nowhere. His country is truly one of the world's largest producers of medicines, including vaccines for a wide variety of diseases; it has plenty of experience in the development and production of such drugs. In addition, India also has vast experience in organizing multimillion-dollar vaccination campaigns - the country at one time was massively vaccinated against polio, smallpox, and other “diseases of the East.” In a country with a huge population, such operations always required serious preparation and organization.
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But this time, even with all the experience, “the world’s largest democracy” will not have an easy time. According to the national immunization program, in a short period of time, about a month or two, about 30 million people will receive the vaccine - 10 million health workers and 20 million of those whom the authorities declared “on the front line” - police officers, military personnel, etc.
Then Indians over 50 and those with underlying health conditions will be vaccinated, which is another 270 million people. Thus, 300 million - almost a quarter of the citizens of the country with a population of 1.3 billion - are planned to be vaccinated by July of this year. In total, up to 600 million Indians could receive the vaccine this year.
“This will be the largest vaccination drive ever seen anywhere in the world,” Harsh Vardhan, head of India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, told reporters on the day mass vaccinations began on January 16.
Vaccination as an election
However, the number of people vaccinated is not the only record that India intends to break during this campaign.
Vaccination in India is also a free choice for everyone, authorities say. On the issue of choice - even the election commission is involved in the vaccination process!
For what? The reason is simple - the country does not have a strict passport system, but every voter must register with the local election commission and receive the appropriate ID. In December last year, the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs specifically asked the Election Commission to help “identify people over 50 years of age.” For this purpose, electoral lists from the last parliamentary and local legislative elections will be used. In response, the commission said that it was ready to help with the vaccination campaign, but with the condition: “The data obtained will be used only for vaccination purposes. This data must be deleted by health authorities after the campaign ends.”
By and large, the appeal to the election commission was justified - according to Indian laws, all voting stations must be within walking distance for voters: no more than two kilometers from housing, including in the mountains, jungles, and islands. Therefore, ballot boxes are delivered to reserves with tigers and lions, to jungles, to mountain villages, and even to islands where traditional tribes live. Therefore, no one knows better than local election commissions who lives where and how to get to whom.
Preparations for the campaign were long and thorough, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan told reporters: “We have been preparing for this for five months and have set up vaccination centers across the country, even in remote and undeveloped areas, in tribal areas.”
About 150,000 vaccinators in 700 districts were trained to carry out the campaign. Moreover, about 2,360 people have been trained in the trainer program at the national level, and more than 61 thousand vaccination managers have been trained at the state, district and local levels. In advance, on January 2 and 8, nationwide vaccination exercises took place: delivery workers brought a “conditional vaccine” (saline solution) to vaccination points, but in compliance with all the necessary temperature standards. And vaccinators “vaccinated” medical mannequins .
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A chain of refrigeration units was also prepared in advance for the distribution, storage and rapid delivery of the vaccine throughout the country. State and private pharmaceutical companies and food industry enterprises are involved. Even startups that deliver pizza and other food to customers have been attracted, having previously found out where and what kind of refrigerators they have to use to store the drug along the delivery route.
But the main thing that the authorities are especially proud of is that the online platform Co-WIN has been developed - a digital vaccine supply management system (Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network), thanks to which each vaccine is tracked and you can always understand what stock of drugs is left and where it is located. A Co-WIN application for citizens has also been developed. It is expected that when the vaccination of the first “preferential” groups is completed, only those who have registered through this application will be allowed to be vaccinated in India. Citizens will receive an SMS message with the date, time and place of vaccination, which must be strictly observed - no more than 100 people per day will be vaccinated at each point to avoid crowds and queues at vaccination points.
However, the application still does not work and cannot be downloaded. But they promise that it will be used “very soon.”
Two plus six, including Sputnik
The queue for vaccination is observed very strictly. Prime Minister Modi specifically emphasized that politicians and officials should not receive the drug out of turn, but will wait for their SMS for vaccination. January 16,” he said, after a number of state chief ministers (heads of regional governments)
) approached the Center with a proposal that representatives of local authorities should also be recognized as a priority group.
And what is instilled in the “world’s largest democracy”? So far, only two vaccines have been officially approved for use against COVID-19 in India. One of them is Covishield, developed by the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca and Oxford University, and produced by the Serum Institute of India in Pune. The other is Covaxin, developed and manufactured by Indian company Bharat Biotech. Both vaccines, I emphasize again, are produced in India.
“Normally, it takes many years to make a vaccine, but in such a short span of time, not one but two ‘Made in India’ vaccines are ready. Meanwhile, work on other vaccines is also progressing at a rapid pace,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi proudly emphasized on the day the campaign launched. He gave the go-ahead live, after which vaccination began across the country under the lenses of journalists.
Indian authorities allowed the use of these two drugs on January 3 - on an emergency basis, that is, even before the completion of the full cycle of trials in the country. This happened for the first time - in accordance with local legislation, in order for any vaccine to be authorized here, it must undergo multi-stage clinical trials in India itself. The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has the authority to refuse such trials in special cases. However, such a rule has not been applied before.
Interestingly, the American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer also submitted a request for emergency use of its drug in India back in December, but its vaccine has not yet been authorized here. At the same time, everyone understands that India will need a lot of such drugs. Therefore, according to various sources, six more drugs are being tested in the country, including the Russian Sputnik V.
As for the vaccination campaign itself, it started off vigorously in India, but still not as active as expected. In the first four days of mass vaccination, by the morning of Wednesday, January 20, 674,835 people had been vaccinated against coronavirus. Although it was assumed that it would be one and a half times more. So, it was planned that on the first day - January 16 - 300 thousand people would get vaccinated, but there were significantly fewer of them - 207,229.
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Already in the first days, information appeared about side “undesirable” consequences of vaccinations; three days later they were noted in 580 people, seven people were hospitalized. After vaccination, two people died, however, the country’s Ministry of Health immediately reported that these deaths were not related to vaccinations: one died, according to official information, due to cardiopulmonary disease, the second due to a heart attack.
“Until now, there have been no cases of serious or severe adverse events associated with vaccination,” Health Ministry spokesman Manohar Agnani told reporters. According to him, the side effects are minor: mild pain and slight swelling at the injection site, fever, nausea and mild allergic reactions - rash, for example.
How should we feel about this? Experts make it clear: such a large-scale program, of course, cannot do without some problems. But they emphasize: nevertheless, the campaign, which is intended to become the most massive population vaccination operation in world history, has begun and is ongoing.
At the same time, India did not forget about the promise to “help the whole world get vaccinated”: on January 20, this country began shipping drugs to neighboring countries. “The Government of India has received several requests for supplies of Indian vaccines from neighboring countries and key partner countries. In response to these requests and in line with India's stated commitment to use India's vaccine manufacturing and delivery capabilities to help all humanity combat the COVID-19 pandemic, grant assistance supplies to Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Seychelles begin on January 20, 2021,” the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially announced. Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Mauritius are expected to join this list in the near future. And then other countries.
The author of this article, at the vaccination launch ceremony, which took place at the Indian Institute of Medical Research on January 16, asked the head of the Indian Ministry of Health, Harsh Vardhan, whether his country was ready to produce a vaccine for Russia as well. The answer was: “India makes vaccines for the whole world. It is not a question of making a vaccine for this or that country, our capacity and capacity to produce the vaccine is truly enormous!”
Most common diseases in India
While traveling to this country, it is possible to become infected with various infections.
A number of the most common ones should be highlighted:
- Dysentery. One of the most common diseases in the state. This is primarily due to the lack of a unified sewer system.
- Hepatitis. Intestinal infection is transmitted through unwashed fruits and water. There is a high risk of infection in India.
- Polio. An extremely dangerous disease that causes people to become disabled or die.
- Diphtheria. The disease, transmitted by airborne droplets, can lead to paralysis and disruption of the cardiovascular system.
Typhoid fever. Infestation occurs during the rainy season. Typhoid is also called the disease of dirty water.- Malaria. Transmitted through insect bites. Prevention does not imply the introduction of a vaccine. Local mosquito repellents are used.
- Rabies. Infection occurs as a result of an animal bite. When characteristic clinical manifestations appear (excessive salivation, convulsions, auditory hallucinations), the chances of a favorable outcome are reduced to zero. The man dies.
Why is there a high chance of getting infected without vaccinations in India?
The risk of contracting various diseases in this state is high. This is due to the fact that the streets of the country are completely unsanitary.
Almost everywhere there is a lack of sewerage; there are no stations that purify water. In major cities like Mumbai and Delhi, heaps of waste emit a stench and are piled up on the roadsides.
Indian catering is not a spectacle for the faint of heart. Here, the cleanliness of street eateries and cafes is not particularly monitored. Due to the intense heat, food spoils in just a few hours, so a lot of spices are added to food, and dishes are overly spicy.
In this way they try to stop the proliferation of pathogenic bacteria.
Hepatitis A
It is believed that most people lose full immunity to hepatitis A by the age of 40, but the rate of spread of the disease in Indian territory means that visitors of any age should be on alert and vaccinate themselves in advance. In this case, 30 days before the holiday with mandatory revaccination a year later. Only with this scheme will the declared effect last up to 10 years and the risk of infection will become negligible.
Currently, 4 brands of “hepatitis” vaccine are sold in Russia, these are:
- "GEP-A-in-VAK"
- Avaxim
- "Havrix"
- "Waqta"
Where are vaccinations given for tourists?
You can get vaccinated at a regular public clinic at your place of residence. True, all the medications you need for a trip to India cannot be found here. Some vaccinations will have to be done in a private clinic.
The main thing is to make sure that you have certificates that give you the right to carry out immunization. This document is considered a guarantee that vaccines comply with regulations and are properly stored and transported. If the medical institution does not have it, you should not use the clinic’s services.
Protection against dysentery
Dysentery is common in India. Manifested by stool disorder and general deterioration of the condition. The bacteria spread through contact and remain viable in water and food. There is a vaccination against dysentery Shigella Sonne, if you get it, immunity will last for a year. You can protect yourself from other types of dysentery pathogens only by following the rules:
- do not buy questionable food on the shelves;
- wash vegetables and fruits;
- disinfect hands;
- do not drink local water;
- take small doses of alcohol.
When should you get vaccinated?
It is best not to delay immunization until the day before your planned trip. These steps must be completed in advance.
It is recommended to consult a doctor three months before travel. The specialist draws up the most appropriate vaccination schedule. Some vaccinations are given immediately, while others are given a month or several weeks before travel.
The danger of typhoid fever
India's wastewater is an open source of pathogens. One of them is the Salmonella typhi bacillus, which causes typhus. It is better to prepare for the trip in advance, taking into account the epidemiological situation.
There is a vaccination against typhus, which is recommended for all tourists before flying. Typhoid infection spreads quickly and is severe.
Painless vaccination with Vianvac or Tifim Vi is tolerated without side effects; it is done two weeks before the trip.
What to take with you regarding medications
It is extremely important that the tourist has a first aid kit with him, which contains all the supplies necessary during the trip:
- medicine for conjunctivitis;
2-3 different medications for diarrhea and constipation (you should not limit yourself to one type, because the medicine may be ineffective);- medications that improve the digestion process, for example, Mezim;
- potassium permanganate for disinfecting water that can be used to wash fruits, but such actions should be resorted to only if there is no bottled water nearby;
- several bottles of brilliant green and iodine;
- antibacterial patches;
- aspirin;
- painkillers;
- motion sickness remedies;
- sprays and creams against mosquitoes, carriers of malaria.
If you have children, you need to make sure that you have anti-allergy drugs and antipyretics in your medicine cabinet.
Malaria
This severe disease occurs when bitten by a malaria mosquito. Malaria is widespread, and the risk of infection continues throughout the year. You should be afraid of mosquitoes at night. Most often, hotels do not have mosquito nets, and a blanket is dubious protection.
Among all types of malaria, the most dangerous is tropical. And all because with improper treatment or no treatment at all, a person can die.
The symptoms are very similar to a cold: high fever, chills, weakness and headache.
There is no vaccine against malaria. Mefloquine and Doxycycline are taken as prophylaxis. For prevention in children, you should consult a doctor. Malaria is generally not fatal, but it is very unpleasant. Treatment lasts several weeks, and the temperature almost always remains high.
Additional preventive measures
Additional preventive measures that significantly reduce the risk of infection include the following:
make sure there is a mosquito net at the hotel;- To avoid insect bites, wear long sleeves and trousers or jeans;
- apply repellents in the form of creams, lotions and aerosols to exposed areas of the body;
- at night, stay in a room where insects cannot enter; doors and windows must be covered with curtains or a mosquito net;
- treat the room using special aerosol products, for example, Raptor;
- monitor your well-being: any negative changes should be a reason to contact a medical facility;
- drink only bottled water;
- Be sure to rinse fruits and vegetables with boiling water before eating;
- Avoid juices and drinks with ice: regular local water, which contains many pathogenic organisms, can be frozen;
- constantly use disinfectant wipes;
- avoid eating in questionable places.
Perhaps such measures will be enough to prevent infection with dangerous diseases. But it will be much safer to get vaccinated.
