The Bonus for Trying a New Oral Vaccine Is a Nearly Paid-For Vacation

Getting paid to travel is the ultimate fantasy. Here’s a way to do it that doesn’t involve peddling manuscripts or lecturing aboard tour buses. All you have to do is lend your body to science.

Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health has teamed with AmeriSpan, the international language school clearinghouse, to conduct a study on that scourge of Third World vacations, traveler’s diarrhea.

Participants will study Spanish for two or three weeks in Cuernavaca, Mexico, or Antigua, Guatemala, and will be paid up to $450 (for two weeks) and $600 (for three weeks) to take a new oral vaccine designed to battle diarrhea. Because AmeriSpan’s language programs start at only slightly more than $450 for two weeks, participants can, in theory, nearly break even on their vacation costs. (Transportation is extra.)

Antigua is the cheaper study option, costing just $365 for two weeks, $545 for three weeks, plus a $100 registration fee. Those prices cover a private room with a local host family, three meals a day (except Sundays), airport transfer and private instruction in Spanish for 20 hours a week.

At $795 for two weeks ($1,150 for three weeks), Cuernavaca is the costlier choice, but offers more instruction. Three meals a day, airport pickup and shared lodging are included.

On to the medical side of the program: Before departure, participants are given two doses of the vaccine or a placebo. Once in the destination country, they are required to give two blood and three stool samples during their stay.

At the end of the vaccine trial, participants will be informed as to whether they received the vaccine or a placebo.

The vaccine is in trial for approval by the Food and Drug Administration and has shown no significant side effects to date. Known as a “killed oral vaccine,” it is taken by mouth and contains all the bacteria that cause the disease, except for the element that makes you ill. In this case, the body creates antibodies to defend itself against the most common cause of traveler’s diarrhea, enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) bacteria. (Note that this strain of bacteria is not the same as the deadly 0157 E. coli.)

If this vaccine is approved, it will be a great boon to travelers and may spare the 2 million to 3 million children in the developing world who die each year from the dehydration caused by diarrhea.

Contact AmeriSpan at (800) 879-6640, Internet https://www.amerispan.com, or direct medical questions to Janet Shimko of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, tel. (877) 205-1941.

You can book the Antigua program through STA at (800) 777-0112, Internet https://www.statravel.com.