Are you up to date on your shots for travel in the U.S.?

This (Northern Hemisphere) summer is shaping up to be pretty exciting for me. I received a full scholarship to attend an intensive 6-day workshop about bats at a field station in Arizona. I’ve never been to Arizona so I’m excited about that. But I’m even more excited about catching LOTS of bats and getting ideas for my own research.

In order to handle bats all workshop participants must receive the rabies vaccine. I looked into getting the shots before we came to NZ, but we didn’t need to vaccine to work with bats in New Zealand because they don’t have rabies here. Pretty much anywhere else in the world you need it if you’re going to work closely with mammals.

It’s a series of three shots over the course of a month so I don’t have time to do it in U.S. after we get back and I have to do it in New Zealand. It is also slightly cheaper to do it here.

I got my first shot on Tuesday in Christchurch. Since rabies doesn’t occur in New Zealand, the only reason people get it is for travel abroad. The nurse asked me where I was traveling and I explained that I was going home to the U.S. (but that I had to get the shots to do a workshop with bats and I didn’t have enough time to get the shots in the U.S. when I go home and it would be more expensive anyways). We talked about rabies, the vaccine, possible side effects and adverse reactions, etc. I was amazed at how much time this woman spent with me when all she had to do was spend two minutes prepping and giving me a shot in the arm. Then she proceeded to go through all the recommended inoculations for travel to the U.S. to make sure I was up to date on Hepatitis A & B, tetanus, mumps, etc! I wasn’t quite sure how to react… after all, I was just going home. Who needs extra vaccines to go home? I thought I’d had every shot possible to go to Ecuador and Kenya. She was surprised that no one had recommended I get a flu shot (although now I really think that’s the only vaccine I haven’t had).

The nurse gave me a printout of the travel alerts and health & safety recommendations for travel to the U.S. We got a kick out of reading it. It really helps put such things for other countries in perspective.

The nurse spent about 25 minutes with me (or out of the room getting things for me) in all. I can’t remember the last time a nurse or doctor spent that much time solely devoted to me. She did tell me after the shot that they try to keep people around for 15-20 minutes afterwards to check for immediate adverse reactions, but I think in the U.S. they would’ve just left me alone in the room (hopefully with a magazine) and came back later to check on me. So far my limited experience with the New Zealand universal health care system has been wonderful. My nurse was delightful and friendly and she didn’t seem overworked. I’m kind of looking forward to next Tuesday when I go back for my second shot.

Carrie