Vaccines for Africa: the CDC list country by country

The table

For each destination: CDC's level for hepatitis A and typhoid (most, some or consider travelers), its yellow fever advice, the certificate rule at the border, and whether it advises malaria tablets. Each name links to CDC's own page; the country pages of this site quote it in full.

Yellow fever along a route

A single African trip often crosses several borders, and the yellow fever rules chain. Ghana, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burkina Faso and the other countries that ask every traveler need the certificate whatever the route. Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Africa and many others ask only travelers coming from a country with risk, so the first border may not ask, and the second will: a traveler going from Kenya to Tanzania, or from Uganda to Rwanda, needs the certificate at the second border. South Africa asks it of travelers arriving from Zambia, among others, which catches many Victoria Falls itineraries. Tanzania counts a transit of more than 12 hours. The trip checker applies the rules in the order of the stops; the certificate page lists every rule.

Malaria across the continent

In most of sub-Saharan Africa, CDC describes malaria in all areas, cities and game parks included, with Plasmodium falciparum, the species behind most severe cases, and resistance to chloroquine. The drugs it lists there are atovaquone-proguanil, doxycycline, mefloquine and tafenoquine. The exceptions are at the edges: Cape Verde, Mauritius, Seychelles, Lesotho, and North Africa from Morocco to Egypt have no prescription advice, and in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Eswatini the risk is limited to listed northern or eastern areas, such as the Kruger area. Kenya and Ethiopia exclude highlands above set altitudes. The malaria pills page counts the tablets for a stay.

Food, water and other lines

Hepatitis A and typhoid are the two shots that start almost every African list, since both spread through food and water. Cholera appears for areas of active transmission in many countries of eastern and southern Africa and in Nigeria and Ghana, as a vaccine to consider. Polio boosters are listed where poliovirus was identified in the past year, which on CDC's pages includes a long list of African countries, Nigeria, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo among them. Rabies is to discuss with a clinician everywhere, and dogs are the main source on the continent. Meningococcal vaccine applies to the meningitis belt in the dry season, roughly December to June.

Visiting family

Many travelers to Africa are going home to see relatives, often for weeks, staying in houses rather than hotels and eating family meals. CDC's lists apply to them as to any traveler; people who grew up in a country with malaria lose their partial immunity within a few years abroad, and children born elsewhere never had it. Visits to friends and relatives are among the trips most often linked to malaria and typhoid diagnosed after travel in the United States. The same is true of yellow fever: a certificate is asked of a returning national as of anyone else at the borders that ask every traveler. A long family stay is also the case where CDC's some travelers lines, such as rabies or meningococcal vaccine in the dry season, are most likely to apply, which is worth telling the clinician at the visit.

Planning the visit

The yellow fever certificate becomes valid ten days after the shot, and the vaccine is given only at designated centers, so it sets the earliest useful date for an African trip that needs it. Typhoid needs two weeks, malaria tablets start one day to two weeks ahead depending on the drug, and hepatitis A can be given up to the departure day. A visit four to six weeks before leaving fits all of them, with room for a second visit if a series needs one. The Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana and South Africa pages go into the detail of four common trips.