There are Expensive New Travel Vaccination Requirements in place if you are Traveling to Europe

You've always known about the travel vaccination requirements the government publishes for those who have to travel to exotic locales - the Pacific islands, South Asia, Africa or some parts of Latin America. Most people reluctantly comply with these even if they don't want to; they hardly like the idea of falling ill with malaria or something far from home. But what do you do when the CDC begins to publish health advisories about traveling to Western Europe?

The US is right now seeing more cases of measles than at any time in the past 15 years. And most of these attacks happened to people who came from back after traveling to Western Europe - France, Germany, Britain, Switzerland, and so on. The same applies for summer travel to popular destinations in Mexico like Cancun. It never occurs to anyone that they could need shots to travel a few miles south of the border to Cancun. But travel vaccination requirements these days really are expanding.

Travel anywhere in Central or Latin America, and you need the Hepatitis A vaccination. When it comes to Hepatitis A, almost every case reported in America has been in someone who's come back from a visit to those parts. Basically, the nature of foreign travel has changed. No matter where you're traveling - a developed country or a less-developed one, a bunch of routine immunizations are always a good idea. A tetanus shot once a decade, and the Measles Mumps Rubella or MMR shot, are nearly requirements any time you cross the US borders these days.

So why are these diseases that have for long been thought eradicated turning up all of a sudden even in developed parts of the world? In large part, it's because parents in these parts of the world have bought into the scare that's come up that vaccinations cause autism in children. The CDC today advises that if you're taking any child under one year of age to another country, at least one measles vaccination should be considered mandatory. Children older than a year old should have been administered at least two doses.

There are other travel vaccination requirements that you'll need to comply with depending on where you plan to travel to, too. A travel medicine expert will usually be able to tell you for instance, if you need a yellow fever shot. Usually, you need these if you're traveling to Latin America or Africa. If you're traveling to Africa and then to India for instance, they will stop you at the airport and ask for evidence that you've been vaccinated for yellow fever.

These shots may be expensive at about $100 a pop. But paying for these sure beats falling ill.