China Stories

Both 'Ooh' and 'Yah'.

24th Apr 2008 17:00, Gerald

The thing about travelling anywhere is that by going to other places you run the risk of getting all kinds of diseases that you might not get if you just stayed at home. But, it would obviously be a bit of a challenge to make some programmes about China from the comfort of my wee house and so the only real option is to get immunised against any diseases that I could pick up in China.

Now, as we are going to film in some pretty rural areas (in farms, paddy fields and the like), it has been suggested I get a number of jags that I wouldn't really need to get if I was simply going to some of the bigger cities where many of these diseases just don't exist.

Now I thought I might just need a jab or two but it turns out there's a "couple" more. You might not want to read on if you are squeamish…

Across three separate sessions (one a week) I will receive immunisations for the following-

• Hepatitis A (a booster as I had this a while back),
• Hepatitis B (1 of),
• Rabies (3 lots AND they tweak your skin before they stick the needle in!),
• Tick Encephalitis (2 of),
• Japanese Encephalitis (3 of)

and some gross drink for Cholera which smells like the best sherbet ever but tastes like muck. And they make me have it twice. I'll also be taking tablets for Malaria when I am out there.

And these are all in addition to jabs for Typhoid fever, Tetanus, Tuberculosis and Diphtheria that you should get but which I have already had.

Ouch.

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