About 2 months prior to travel look up the CDC’s website for recommended travel vaccines. Most you should have at least 2 weeks prior to travel. I recommend earlier if possible just in case you have a reaction (not common) and to give your immune system the time it needs to build antibodies. The pharmacy will carry some, your primary care will likely have some or the easiest (if you are in a large city and have access) is to go to a travel clinic. They will have everything. When I do research for my patients I start by googling the country “recommended vaccines CDC.gov” and it will generally take you to a country specific page. I highly recommend reading through this site. Here is an example of Costa Rica’s page: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/none/costa-rica
It is recommended that you are updated with standard non-travel related vaccines including MMR (measles), flu (you will be on a plane – don’t chance it), Tdap (Tetnus/whooping cough), and all those other ones that you should be getting anyway.
Also usually recommend is a Hepatitis A anytime you are traveling outside of the country. This is a series of 2 injections separated by 6 weeks. Here is the CDC info on the vaccine. Hepatitis A had recently been added to the childhood routine vaccination schedule.
Consider a Hepatitis B – it is now routinely given during childhood (but if you’re not a kid still you probably haven’t has it). It’s also given to adults at increased risk. It’s a series of 3 injections.
Typhoid fever vaccination is recommended in many places including Central America. Before we went to Costa Rica I was trying to get all 5 us all vaccinated for Typhoid per the CDC’s recommendation. My problem ended up being the cost of the vaccine – $60-$100 per person when all said and done. I did a little more research and from the data I could find (which was not a heck of a lot). I did not see that Typhoid was as common in Costa Rica as other Central America Countries. From what I understand the CDC put all the Central American Countries together for this recommendation. Typhoid has also gotten much easier to treat. What I choose to do is to get my younger 2 vaccinated and not us older people. The reason I did this is because they are smaller. If they had severe diarrhea they could get dehydrated much faster than the rest of us. Typhoid would typically be way worse for them. So to me, if you’re going to Costa Rica it’s a judgment call and may not be worth the money. Other places where the risk is higher – get the vaccine.
Yellow Fever and Japanese Encephalitis – these are both tricky travel vaccines to sort through. If you think you may need them please go to a travel clinic. You have to have specific paperwork for yellow fever. Japanese Encephalitis is tricky to figure out. It a seasonal thing in only a few areas so for me it’s really hard to tell who needs this vaccine but a travel clinic should have more information then I have.
Rabies – if around bats, caves or working with animals.
COVID-19: Not available yet at the time of this article but I can’t wait. We need a good COVID vaccine.
