Yellow Fever for Peru/Bolivia

Lisa_C

Hello everyone, I live in the U.S. and will be taking the July 22 Peru/Bolivia tour. In preparation, I am finalizing my vaccinations. Yesterday, a Passport Health nurse gave me Hep A and Typhoid (both very strongly recommended) as well as Malaria pills. She said Yellow Fever is the only other one to consider but it is not required only optional. I am trying to decide if I should get it or not. Any thoughts anyone has would be most appreciated. I don't want to be prohibited entry, get sick, or take unnecessary shots! Thank you.

British

Normally I would say speak to your travel specialist,but that is what you did. I have not done any research on this area. First, you have to understand the difference between 'Required' and ' Recommended' because there is a difference. Required means you cannot be admitted into the country without the vaccine.Recommended means after reading on say the CDC or WHO websites and talking to your travel specialist, you make an informed decision. This may also include discussing your general health and medications. I do not know anything about you, except to say, if you plan on visiting other exotic places, it might be worth gettinga vaccine now, it's good for ten years and current research suggests that a second booster may not be needed, certainly by the time ten years is up, someone will have made that decision

Lisa_C

Thank you! I do plan to go to Iguazu Falls in the next ten years, so I've decided to go ahead and get the yellow fever shot!

romanskier

Lisa_C wrote:

Hello everyone, I live in the U.S. and will be taking the July 22 Peru/Bolivia tour. In preparation, I am finalizing my vaccinations. Yesterday, a Passport Health nurse gave me Hep A and Typhoid (both very strongly recommended) as well as Malaria pills. She said Yellow Fever is the only other one to consider but it is not required only optional. I am trying to decide if I should get it or not. Any thoughts anyone has would be most appreciated. I don't want to be prohibited entry, get sick, or take unnecessary shots! Thank you.

My wife and I did the Peru/Galapagos trip in April and May. We got the all the same inoculations just to be on the safe side. It can be confusing about what is recommended, as our doctors office simply asked what we wanted vs. what we should get. The CDC and WHO sites offer general guidelines, but we used our company's on site medical office where they were able to be more specific, since we have quite a few employees traveling worldwide. They even provided us all but the yellow fever shots gratis. We had to go to the Passport services (not affiliated with the US government) who provided the additional shot.

I would recommend taking some form of probiotics along, since you will find you are eating food a bit different from the US and it can help keep the good bacteria working appropriately in your stomach.