Maryn McKenna

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CDC: Traveling for Business Can Be An Expensive Health Risk

June 27, 2014 By Maryn Leave a Comment

The CDC Foundation, which supports the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has put up a new publication urging business travelers to protect their health when they travel internationally and steering them to resources to help.

It’s a smart idea backed by some eye-opening statistics:

  • Cost of a course of malaria prophylaxis drugs: $162. Cost of being hospitalized with malaria on return: $25,250.
  • Cost of taking the two-dose hepatitis A vaccine: $300. Cost of treatment for a case of hep A: $2,500.
  • Cost of medical evacuation insurance: $370. Cost of a medical emergency evacuation: up to $250,000.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Science, Science Blogs, Superbug Tagged With: Business, CDC, Travel

Traveling? Get your shots, take your pills

November 6, 2010 By Maryn Leave a Comment

So, following on polio, a little more about diseases crossing borders.

As a kid, I went to a girls’ convent school outside London. (Blazer, boater, motto, crest. Elocution and deportment. Embroidery classes.) There were about three Americans that I remember, and a few South Asians living in the UK, and some girls whose parents were British but living abroad. One of the regular features of the return to term was an interrogation by the headmistress: Had anyone had any illness in their family over the holidays? One New Year, not knowing any better, I put up my hand. Why, yes, I said innocently; my brothers had had measles.

Fingers drummed. Jaws locked. I was whisked to the headmistress’s study. My mother was summoned. She protested that I had been vaccinated. The headmistress was unmoved. I was barred from school for the presumed incubation period. My mother was not pleased. (“You should have lied,” she hissed once we got home.)

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Science, Science Blogs, Superbug Tagged With: Science Blogs, Travel

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