A new vaccine to treat traveler?s diarrhea has proved promising in a test of more than 4,000 Americans who attended two-to-three-week language programs in Guatemala and Mexico, said Louis Bourgeois, an associate professor at the Center for Immunization Research at Bloomberg School of Public Health?s Department of International Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, who is researching the vaccine.
The vaccine, a liquid formulation which will be taken by mouth, will prevent diarrhea, the bane of many travelers who often come down with the malady a day or two after they arrive on a much-anticipated vacation, and then spend their time recovering, depleted of energy.
“Among the 4,106 American students from all over the country who joined in the test, the vaccine proved 63 percent effective in blocking moderate to severe diarrhea,” Bourgeois said.
Among those who responded most effectively to the antidiarrhea vaccine, 80 percent did not come down with moderate to
severe diarrhea.
Bourgeois said the vaccine will be taken in two doses,w days before the anticipated trip, the first under clinical supervision and the second at home. But Bourgeois noted that even though the test results were promising, further tests are called for and it may be five years before the vaccine is publicly available.
