Charlotte, NC, Jan. 25, 2016 – Novant Health Infectious Disease Specialists in Charlotte now provides services for travelers heading to exotic destinations around the world where significant health risks exist. While primary care providers can offer counseling and vaccines to protect their patients for most travel outside the United States, the Infectious Disease Specialists clinic is uniquely prepared to deal with travel to Latin America, South America, Southeast Asia and Africa where typhoid, malaria, yellow fever and other diseases are often found.
The clinic’s providers counsel patients on topics such as food and water precautions, self-management of traveler’s diarrhea, how to avoid insect bites, as well as what symptoms indicate high altitude sickness. The clinic also offers a variety of vaccines, including yellow fever, hepatitis A and B, typhoid, tetanus, polio and meningococcal disease. Patients traveling to areas endemic for malaria will also be prescribed a prophylaxis for the disease.
Many primary care clinics don’t have the typhoid vaccine, and none in the Charlotte area can provide the yellow fever vaccine. In fact, administering the yellow fever vaccine requires special training to gain a stamp from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to register the vaccination on the traveler’s passport. Without the evidence of the yellow fever vaccination having been received, travelers will be denied entry to some countries.
The clinic’s providers all have an extensive background in travel medicine. William Harley, MD, ran the Mecklenburg County Travel Clinic from 1998 to 2006. Michael Blocker, MD, and Carmen Tichindelean, MD, also have extensive international travel experience. The clinic’s mission extends beyond helping patients stay healthy while traveling abroad. It includes treating patients who come home ill from a trip and offering inpatient and outpatient consultation for a broad range of infectious diseases.
Patients will be expected to pay for the counseling and the vaccines at the time of service. The clinic will provide patients with an estimate of the expected cost before their visit. The clinic is located at 1900 Randolph Road, Suite 216, Charlotte. Appointments are available Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and can be made by calling 704-316-5330. For more information, please visit nhinfectiousdiseasespecialistscharlotte.org.
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