Travel vaccinations

One of the matters you need to address when traveling to many countries in Africa are health orientated. The company Intrepid who I am using for the trip does mention this n their travel advice and probably the best place to go for more advice is your GP or a travel vaccination centre. There are a couple of very good websites that will help with that.

https://travelhealthpro.org.uk/ and https://www.fitfortravel.nhs.uk/

There are quite a few diseases that are mentioned for my trip that includes two countries: Kenya and Tanzania so I need to be covered for both. Luckily a lot of mosquito related problems aren’t applicable on higher altitudes of Kilimanjaro.

The diseases turns out I should focus on and to the ones I got protected against is

  • malaria: tablets that need to be taken two days before the trip, every day during the trip and another 7 days after
  • rabies: might not be on tops of other people’s list but I might get close to animals and thought it might be good to get a booster. Had my initial three jabs before my Carriacou trip .
  • Diphtheria
  • Hepatitis A
  • Yellow fever

The diphtheria and Hepatitis A are actually covered by the NHS but I did have to pay for the rabies jab. I had a discussion with the GP nurse about Hepatitis B but decided against it. It is not that widespread in Kenya and Tanzania and would only be a concern if I got injured. It is is also sexually transmitted but don’t think I’ll be up to those kind of things while I’m there.

Martin McDowell, Kilimanjaro 2019