Vaccines for Kenya

Where CDC draws the yellow fever line in Kenya

Kenya is one of the few countries where CDC's yellow fever advice changes from county to county. The starting point is broad: the vaccine is recommended for all travelers aged 9 months or older. Then come the exceptions. CDC says the vaccine is generally not recommended for travel limited to the city of Nairobi, to the three counties of the former North Eastern Province (Mandera, Wajir and Garissa), or to the counties of the former Coast Province: Kilifi with the city of Malindi, Kwale, Lamu, Mombasa and Tana River. Taita-Taveta belonged to the old Coast Province but is left out of the exception, so the general recommendation applies there.

The word "limited" carries the weight. A week split between a Mombasa hotel and the beaches of Kwale falls inside the exception. The same week with two nights in the Maasai Mara, Amboseli or around Lake Nakuru does not, because those parks lie in counties that keep the full recommendation. "Generally not recommended" is not the same as "not recommended": CDC's wording leaves room for a clinician to discuss the shot, for instance for long stays or many hours outdoors. The vaccine is a single dose, the certificate becomes valid 10 days after it, and the published US price runs from $226 to $360.

The Kenyan border, and the border after it

Kenya asks no certificate from travelers who fly in directly from the United States. It asks one from travelers 1 year or older who arrive from a country with yellow fever risk, so the question comes up when Ethiopia, Uganda or another risk country is the stop before Nairobi. For most visitors from the US, UK, Canada or Australia the larger effect runs the other way. Kenya is itself on the list of risk countries, and the next border reads the passport stamp, not the counties visited. Tanzania, the usual second half of an East African safari, asks a certificate from travelers 1 year or older coming from risk countries, and CDC adds that airport transits or layovers longer than 12 hours count. A traveler who stayed only in Nairobi, where CDC does not generally recommend the shot, can still face that rule on arrival in Arusha or Dar es Salaam. The checker below starts in Kenya and continues to Tanzania; replace the second stop to see the verdict follow the route.

Malaria: the 2,500 meter rule and the game parks

CDC describes malaria transmission in Kenya as present in all areas below 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) and names game parks explicitly. The one carve out is the highly urbanized central part of Nairobi, where cases are rare and CDC lists no medicine, only insect bite precautions. Outside that core, the general description applies again, which covers the safari circuits, the lakes of the Rift Valley and the whole coast. Most infections are caused by Plasmodium falciparum, and chloroquine resistance is reported, so chloroquine is not among the four drugs CDC lists: atovaquone-proguanil, doxycycline, mefloquine and tafenoquine.

For ten days in a risk area, atovaquone-proguanil comes to 19 daily tablets, about $28 at the price pharmacies pay; doxycycline to 40 tablets, because it continues for four weeks after leaving; mefloquine to 8 weekly tablets. The prescriber weighs health history, other medicines, pregnancy and the length of the stay before choosing.

The rest of the Kenya list, with prices

A dose of hepatitis A costs $75 to $129 on the US county price lists, the typhoid shot $140 to $203, and a dose of the two dose hepatitis B vaccine $149 at the median. Hepatitis A (both doses), typhoid and yellow fever together, with the visit and administration fees some departments add, come to $607 to $860, median $683.

Meningococcal vaccine is listed for travelers 2 months or older going to the parts of Kenya that belong to the meningitis belt during the dry season, roughly December to June, at a median of $164 a dose. Cholera vaccine may be considered for areas of active transmission, which CDC places in the counties of Garissa, Migori, Mombasa, Nairobi, Narok and Turkana; Garissa has the most recent case. Rabid dogs are common and the virus is present in some wildlife, and CDC notes that rabies vaccine after a bite may only be found in larger suburban or urban facilities, a fact that weighs in the pre-exposure discussion for remote camps (two doses at $838 at the median). CDC has also posted a Level 1 notice about Ebola (Bundibugyo virus) disease in Kenya, dated October 19, 2026. The certificate rules by country page lists the other borders that react to a stay in Kenya.