If you have the bug to travel, you may want to visit this clinic, lest you catch a bug while overseas that may ruin your vacation.

Dr. Laura Selby is an infectious disease specialist at St. Charles Bend. She does pre-travel consults at the clinic at 2600 NE Neff Road.

The majority of Selby’s practice is taking care of patients who have life-threatening infections.

But since the retreat of COVID-19 and related illnesses, more and more Central Oregonians are starting to travel, some to exotic places that may not have the best medical care readily available.

“People are taking those big bucket list trips, such as safaris in Tanzania, Kenya or South Africa or going on a mission South or Central America,” Dr. Selby said. “The last thing you want to do is to be stuck in your hotel with traveler’s diarrhea or come back with malaria and meet me at the hospital.”

St. Charles opened the travel clinic in September 2022.

“It’s best to visit four to eight weeks prior to traveling so if there are vaccines we need to administer, they will be effective when one is ready to leave the country,” she said.

Plus, Selby keeps up with State Department warnings that are routinely issued for traveling U.S. citizens.

“We encourage patients to stay safe. We give them U.S. embassy contact information, travel advisories,” she said. “For instance, there was a recent outbreak of Marburg, a viral hemorrhaic fever transmitted by bug bites in Tanzania recently. If you saw me six months ago, I would not have known that. That’s why one should visit closer to their departure date.”

Most people who are traveling to western Europe don’t need to have a travel consultation, since there is usually adequate medical facilities in those places.

But Selby sees quite a few people traveling to Africa and people who are in their 70s and 80s, so there could be quite a few health issues that could crop up.

“A lot of doctors are capable of doing pre-travel assessments,” Selby said. “But as infectious disease specialists, we’re actually trained in pre- and post-travel counseling, diagnosis and treatment, from immunization to just-in-case prescriptions for diarrhea to fever evaluation after you return.”

Selby is seeing about four to five people weekly at the clinic. It is stocked with most of the necessary vaccines, and can order more specialty ones in 48 to 72 hours.

For more details: www.stcharleshealthcare.org/news/new-clinic-offers-travel-medicine-consults

• Immunizations needed
• Typhoid vaccine
• Traveler’s diarrhea
• Altitude medication need
• Malaria prophylaxis
• Yellow fever
• Influenza
• COVID-19
• Water safety, including safe drinking water practices to avoid GI exposures and fresh/salt water concerns
• Bug bite precautions
• U.S. State Department warnings for country of travel
• Recommended traveler’s insurance
• Encourage patient to call with any post-travel concerns
• Embassy information