30 Mar Why vaccines need expert medical translation?

Whether your travel plans are for immigration purposes or simply to take a vacation, medical translation of your vaccination records is an important consideration.

These records, like your passport, are often required for international travel. This means that if you neglect to arrange for professional medical document translation, your itinerary may be delayed or even denied.

Vaccine Requirements

Many vaccines are recommended before you travel to another country, for reasons of basic safety. For example, you may be advised to vaccinate against malaria, cholera, or rabies, depending on what the most common diseases are in your destination country. You should find out about any recent outbreaks so you can plan for vaccines and translations of your medical records accordingly.

Beyond these recommended inoculations, there are some vaccines that are required for certain countries before traveling. Because you must provide proof of vaccination in these cases, medical translation of your records is particularly crucial. At this time, yellow fever is one of the only vaccines required for international travel, usually for those traveling to certain parts of South America and Africa.

You will find that the number of vaccines required for immigration is generally much higher than the number needed for travel. For example, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services, immigrating to the US requires proof of vaccination against a range of diseases, including measles, mumps, rubella, polio, pertussis, hepatitis B, hepatitis A, varicella, tetanus and diphtheria, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, pneumococcal disease, influenza and Haemophilus influenzae type B.

Letting just anyone attempt to translate your medical documents is not a good idea. This is especially true if the translator you choose is not used to handling medical documents. Accurate translation requires that the person doing the job understands the common abbreviations and terms that appear on your immunization record.