Could vaccine tourism damage the medical travel sector?

It took more than a decade for much of the medical tourism sector to rid itself of the image of being cheap with risky practices and unregulated individuals.  But much of the growing COVID-19 vaccine tourism, now a global industry, is barely bordering on legal. Selling vaccines to rich medical tourists is however making money for organisations and countries deprived of normal medical travellers.  Ian Youngman asks whether vaccine tourism will ultimately damage the hard-gained progress of the medical travel sector.

A growing number of people are crossing borders to receive COVID-19 vaccinations unavailable to them in their home countries or states because they are not in a priority group or because of delays to vaccine rollout where they live.

Agencies offer package tours that include a jab, until media exposure makes them halt. Countries offers vaccines to long-stay tourists before vaccinating their own people, until media exposure forces a denial that it ever happened, or statement that it was just a future idea.

Reliable figures for the number of travellers for vaccines are hard to come by, but reports suggest a strong demand. In the US in a number of states, notably Florida, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Arizona and US Virgin Islands, tens of thousands of Americans from other states are believed to have been at least partially vaccinated, some travelling specifically to get their shots.

Agencies have offered trips to India, USA, Russia and the Gulf.

A New York-based concierge medical service that charges a large annual membership fee for unlimited access to a doctor’s care, has received calls from rich patients wanting to travel.

German travel agencies are advertising vaccine vacations to countries where local populations have already been vaccinated.

Norwegian travel agencies are offering similar deals for travellers in Nordic countries, Germany and Russia, the latter including access to the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine.

Austrian media mogul, Christian Mucha, offers vaccine tourism using the slogan “First come. First go. Freedom for you.” Mucha launched a travel agency, Imprfreisen.at, to offer people the opportunity to travel abroad to be vaccinated.

COVID-19 vaccine tourism has evolved due to a scarce resource having a high demand, leading people who are desperate to seek to get it. The wealthier individuals are often the only ones that can afford the travel, treatment and fees.

Vaccination tourism is underpinned by the promise of protection from disease and the freedoms this affords, especially to travel without restrictions. While a number of clinical trials show that vaccines provide a high level of immunity against the disease there is very limited data on the duration of vaccine prevention, and its effectiveness in preventing infectiousness and transmission. Until this data exists, travel will present risks, both to the travellers themselves, and to those with whom they come into contact.

For countries considering offering vaccine tourism, there is a significant reputational risk, if it is offered before the local population is fully vaccinated. And, as ever with medical tourism urgent needs, there will be speculators looking to charge customers excessive prices with over optimistic promises.  Both serve to damage the reputation of the medical travel sector.