Travel clinic in Calgary: vaccines, prescriptions and advice for your trip

Bring your itinerary and, if you have it, your vaccination record. The pharmacist checks what your destinations require or recommend, what you already have, and what fits your health and your dates. Most people leave with their vaccines done and any prescriptions in hand.

Everything in that first paragraph is questions, and you can answer them before you come. The travel form takes about five minutes and covers your route, your dates, your vaccination history and your medications. It is optional and we will happily go through it at the counter — but filling it in first means the pharmacist has already read it, and the appointment is spent on your trip instead of your paperwork.

• We go through your destinations, dates and the kind of trip (city, rural, resort, backpacking).
• We review your routine vaccinations and make sure you're up to date.
• We check which vaccines are required or recommended for each country on your route.
• We talk through any health conditions or medications that affect the plan.
• You get the recommended vaccines and prescriptions — malaria prevention, altitude sickness, traveller's diarrhea — at the same visit.
• We follow up after the appointment to make sure nothing was missed.

Every vaccine is given by a pharmacist in the store. If a vaccine needs more than one dose we book the next one before you leave.

• Yellow fever — required for entry to some countries. Our 20 Ave NW and Royal Vista NW stores are designated Yellow Fever Vaccination Centres on the Public Health Agency of Canada's Alberta list.
• Typhoid — injectable (single dose) or oral.
• Hepatitis A — two doses, 6–12 months apart.
• Hepatitis B — a series of three or four doses.
• Traveller's diarrhea and cholera (oral vaccine).
• Rabies — for rural travel, animal work or long stays.
• Japanese encephalitis — for rural parts of Asia.
• Tetanus / diphtheria / pertussis (Tdap) booster.
• Meningococcal meningitis.

Alberta pharmacists can prescribe, so you don't need a separate doctor's visit for the prescriptions that go with your trip: malaria prevention tablets for your route, treatment to carry for traveller's diarrhea, and medication for altitude sickness. We also stock the travel health products worth taking, such as insect repellent and water purification tablets.

Ideally four to six weeks before you leave, so multi-dose vaccines have time to work. Leaving sooner? Come anyway — most vaccines still give useful protection, and a yellow fever certificate becomes valid ten days after the shot.

All three. Our 20 Ave NW store is listed on Google as Revive Pharmacy – Travel Clinic; Royal Vista NW runs a walk-in travel health clinic; Lynnwood SE takes travel bookings too. Phone consultations can be done from anywhere in Calgary — you then come in for the vaccines.