Vaccines, Vaccination and Immunization

Travel & Edible Vaccines

Travel vaccines are recommended to provide protection against diseases endemic to the country of origin or of destination. They are intended to protect travellers and to prevent disease spread within and between countries. There is no single vaccination schedule that fits all travellers. Each schedule must be individualized according to the traveller’s previous immunizations, health status and risk factors, the countries to be visited, the type and duration of travel, and the amount of time available before departure.

Edible vaccines hold great promise as a cost-effective, easy-to-administer, easy-to-store, fail-safe and sociocultural readily acceptable vaccine delivery system, especially for the poor developing countries. It involves introduction of selected desired genes into plants and then inducing these altered plants to manufacture the encoded proteins.