Direct Marketer Advocates Immunization for Healthy Travel

Clearwater, FL, September 2007 – For some time now, Joy Gendusa, CEO of PostcardMania, has been teaching entrepreneurs in many different industries about marketing and the virtues of direct mail. When she recently was asked to speak at Passport Health’s national convention in Chicago she learned something herself in the process – that immunization for US travelers was not just a good idea, but in many cases it was life saving.

Passport Health has 115 locations across the country and is the largest private purchaser of vaccines in the nation. Fran Lessons, Passport’s Founder, saw a need to be the source of specialized knowledge of critical health advice for people traveling abroad to particular exotic regions.

When Gendusa took on Passport Health as a client, she had no idea the risks she was helping people avoid. Diseases that can be prevented with vaccinations are a grocery list of illness that Americans are not familiar with and are not very prone to in the States. A recent update (August 2007) of these maladies and the regions affected listed on Passport’s website (www.passporthealthusa.com) include:

There’s more to travel medicine than just shots according to Lessans who was quoted in a Washington Times article. She cited an example of an engineer who traveled to Calcutta on business and despite visiting a doctor before leaving he caught malaria which he spent nine months in the hospital for. Lessans pointed out that had he visited Passport Health, nurses would have advised him that mosquitoes’ peak feeding times in that region are one hour before dusk and one hour before dawnand would have explained how to use insect repellent, which must be applied to clothing as well as skin to be effective.

“I think this business has a valuable service to anyone traveling abroad,” voiced Gendusa. “My two teenage boys want to travel to South Africa and I am so glad I now know about this service!”