A yellow fever certificate no longer runs out. The World Health Organization ruled that from July 11, 2016, the certificate of vaccination is valid for life. One dose, recorded once, now does the job that used to need a fresh jab every ten years.
That matters because a long list of countries still checks. Proof of yellow fever vaccination is a condition of entry for many countries in South America and Africa, according to the Sheffield GP Dr Marion Sloan, writing in Wanderlust. She adds that the list keeps changing, and points travellers to the NHS Fit for Travel service for the current picture.
Who asks for it
The disease itself sets the map. Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria and Kenya among them, have yellow fever, and BBC News Pidgin reported that anyone travelling to one of them must take the vaccine.
Transit can count too. South Africa asks for a yellow fever certificate from travellers on an extended transit through its airports.
Why the rule changed
The old advice was a booster every decade. The evidence moved on. Chikwe Ihekweazu, then head of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, told the BBC that the vaccine protects for life. He said a second dose does no harm and adds no further protection.
Sloan makes the same point from the clinic side. Yellow fever vaccination gives lifelong immunity, she writes, unlike rabies or typhoid, which need top-ups for long stays in high-risk areas.
What a new card can still cost you
A lifelong certificate does not mean a lifelong document. In Nigeria, the Federal Airport Authority announced that old yellow cards would become invalid from April 1, to be replaced by a new electronic card. Travellers worried that getting the e-card would mean another injection. Ihekweazu’s answer was that a repeat dose would do them no harm.
The risk the certificate guards against is real. About 15% of people infected with yellow fever develop a severe form of the disease, and up to half of those cases end in death, according to figures Wanderlust drew from the WHO, the CDC and the US National Library of Medicine. The disease attacks the liver and kidneys, and mosquitoes carry it.
Side effects are usually brief. Yellow fever vaccination can bring on mild flu-like symptoms, which usually pass quickly.
In the UK the jab is not free. The NHS covers polio, tetanus, diphtheria, hepatitis A and typhoid for travel, and travellers pay for the rest, at roughly £25 to £85 a jab. For yellow fever, at least, that is now a payment you make once.
