Two weeks ago, I wrote about trying to get reliable, consistent advice and treatment for kids before travelling abroad. Since then, I've discovered such advice isn't only contradictory between different clinics.

Last week, my boyfriend took the three kids to the same British Airways Travel Clinic as me, but on a different day. They were all recommended and given yellow fever jabs, including the one-year-old twins; the following day, I was not. The nurse refused to give me a vaccine she considered unnecessary. We're now in the silly situation of having different jabs, even though we're all going together to the same place - Brazil.

I should have waited for your sensible suggestions to come in. Emily Engel, who is shortly taking her six-year-old to Ecuador, pointed out that many hospitals now have travel clinics, although most are run as private, profit-making concerns. As to the problems of water-borne diseases, she had sound advice: "Let them drink Coke for once, and take a tiny bottle of iodine. One drop sterilises half a litre of water much quicker than the tablets; you get used to the taste."

Homeopath Annie Hall relies on non-chemical methods; she packed Katie, the eldest of her four kids, off to Nepal for six weeks on her Duke of Edinburgh Award with no injections except rabies ("as the antidote can't be kept outside a fridge") and a homeopathy kit (homeopathykits.com).

Annie also pointed out that her alternatives would have been far cheaper than the £360 it eventually cost us for all the different jabs for my family (plus another £45 on mosquito repellent). I'm just concerned they wouldn't be nearly as effective; a reliable preventative is priceless.

Of course, if there's not a mosquito, there's always a fly in every ointment. Neil Barnes wrote soberly, "I was disturbed to note you made no mention of dengue. You should be aware that you are visiting an area which has had a major epidemic of the disease since January - 90,000 cases, half of them in Rio, and 80 deaths. I was one of the statistics - infected in January and have not yet returned to work full time. I hope I haven't ruined your day completely ..."

My week was already ruined when I first found out about the epidemic. I had checked out the American National Center for Infectious Diseases website (cdc.gov/travel), the most useful resource wherever you're going. I discovered that the good news about dengue (for tourists, at least) is that it's only fatal if you're severely malnourished and, most commonly, had it several times before. The only preventative is to use mosquito repellent; there is no cure. Like a dose of bad flu, you just have to sit it out.

So I needed the uplifting message from Tina Leme, who returns to her native Brazil every six months with her three-year-old son Ian. He has exactly the same jabs as anyone his age would have routinely in Britain. "Although I've never been to the Amazon with Ian, I've been to dense forest, lakes, waterfalls, etc," writes his mum. "We Brazilians think that foreigners, especially English, are too scared of some diseases when you actually should take things more easy. It all depends where you go and where you are going to stay."

The only additional jab Ian has for Brazil is TB, which, Tina says, "I assume your children have had already as you travel a lot with them." No they haven't - nor has anyone ever suggested they should. I will now try and discover where it can be done. Unless, of course, one of you knows...

If you have any experiences of travelling with kind that you want to share, email:travelwithkids@cs.com