What vaccines am I required to get and which should I get when visiting Rio?
The Yellow Fever vaccine is required if traveling from Angola or the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo-Kinshasa), excluding transit in an airport located in one of these countries.
If the above does not apply to you, it is recommended that you get the Yellow Fever vaccine at least ten days before you arrive in Brazil. It takes that long for the vaccine to become fully effective.
There's currently a shortage of yellow fever vaccine in Canada.
The Public Health Agency of Canada's travel health notice recommends that travellers consult a health care provider or visit a travel health clinic preferably six weeks before departing.
The vaccination is recommended for anyone older than nine months travelling to areas in Brazil with known risk.
The federal health agency advises that people who cannot get vaccinated against yellow fever consider not travelling to at-risk areas.
I got the following: Yellow Fever, Typhoid, Hepatitis A (the one you get from food/drink), flu, and a tetanus booster. None are 'required', but having gotten sick during my early 2017 Brazil trip, I highly recommend getting vaccines. Plus Yellow Fever is a concern in many parts of the country. There is something called 'Dengue' that is a huge concern right now as well, but I'm not sure if there's a vaccine.
MonteCD is right - there is a shortage of Yellow Fever vaccine in many countries (I am from USA and my husband and I got the last two Yellow Fever vaccines available at our vaccination center in Columbus). I would work on getting that ASAP.
If you can, try to spread out the vaccines. I got mine all at once and was sick for days! (I didn't have a choice, though, as I was leaving for Brazil pretty soon after).
Good information, Tina. Thanks for posting it.
There is currently no dengue vaccine approved for use in the United States. A vaccine was approved for use in Mexico but has yet to come to market. Various other dengue vaccines are currently under development.
Rio's website for Yellow Fever:
Search for Yellow Fever Vaccination Clinics:
Brazil reports a 65% increase in Yellow Fever cases:
Gang held nurses hostage to vaccinate a Rio favela:
A wanted drug dealer in Rio kidnapped medical staff so that his community could be vaccinated against the current crisis of yellow fever in the country.
Yellow Fever circles Brazil's huge cities:
Brazil is suffering its worst outbreak of yellow fever in decades. The virus, which kills 3 percent to 8 percent of those who are infected, is now circling the megacities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, threatening to become this country's first-blown urban epidemic since 1942.
The yellow fever outbreak in Brazil continues to roll on with some numbers not seen in decades.
According to the Brazil Ministry of Health, 846 confirmed yellow fever cases and 260 deaths were reported in the period from July 1, 2017 to March 6 of this year.
Officials say that although the cases of the current monitoring period have been higher than the past seasons, the yellow fever virus now circulates in metropolitan regions of the country with the largest population, reaching 32.5 million people who live in areas that have never had a recommendation of vaccine. In the past seasons, for example, the outbreak reached a population of only 8.4 million people.