| | |  Health & Beauty | January 2009 
Could a Skin Patch Prevent Holiday Diarrhea?
 BMJ Group
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Getting a stomach upset when you travel somewhere exotic can ruin your holiday. So news that a skin patch vaccination might help you avoid tummy trouble is exciting. But the research is at a very early stage. We can't be sure yet that the vaccine will work.
What do we know already?
It's common to get diarrhea when you travel abroad, especially outside of Europe, North America or Australia. About 2 in 10 people get diarrhea when travelling overseas.
Diarrhea doesn't usually cause long-term problems but it can make you feel very unwell for several days. Older people and children are also at risk of losing too much fluid (becoming dehydrated).
What does the new research say?
In a recent study, people who tried the vaccine were slightly less likely to get diarrhea when they travelled. But the study was fairly small, so this result could have come about by chance. However, people who had the vaccine were much less likely to get bad diarrhea. And none of the vaccinated people had diarrhea lasting longer than 24 hours. Unvaccinated people had diarrhea lasting an average of two days.
Tell me more about the study's findings
Researchers gave the vaccine (or a dummy patch with no vaccine in) to about 200 Americans who planned to travel to Mexico or Guatemala. 15 percent of people who had the vaccine got diarrhea on their trip, compared with 22 percent of people who had the dummy patch. Only 5 percent of people who had the vaccine had moderate (worse than mild) or severe diarrhea, compared with 21 percent who had the dummy patch.
More than 6 in 10 people who had the vaccine patch got a rash and itchy skin around the patch. But there were no serious side effects.
Where does the study come from?
The study was carried out by researchers from several U.S. and Mexican universities, working together with the company that is developing the vaccine (IOMAI Corporation). The study was published in The Lancet medical journal, owned by a company called Elsevier.
How reliable are the findings?
The researchers say this was an early-stage study, designed mainly to find out whether the vaccine is safe and how common it is for people to get traveller's diarrhea. The findings are interesting but we need to see more, bigger studies before we'll know whether this vaccine is likely to work.
What does this mean for me?
There needs to be lots more research before the vaccine patch can be made available to the public. So we can't try it yet. However, there are plenty of things you can do to try to reduce your chances of getting traveller's diarrhea. There are also medicines that can shorten an attack of diarrhea if you do get one.
What should I do now?
If you're planning an overseas trip, talk to your pharmacist, GP or travel clinic for advice. Check whether you need to have vaccinations or take malaria tablets. You can also ask about ways to avoid getting travellers' diarrhea and about medicines to take if you do get a stomach upset.
Frech SA, DuPont HL, Bourgeois AL, et al. Use of a patch containing heat-labile toxin from Escherichia coli against travellers' diarrhea: a phase II, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled field trial. The Lancet, published online 12 June 2008. |
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