Recommended Vaccines Before You Depart For Haiti

A number of vaccines, noted below, are recommended for travelers to Haiti by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. See your doctor before you travel to make sure you have had all necessary vaccines.

• Routine: Be sure that you are up to date on vaccines such as measles/mumps/rubella (MMR), diphtheria/pertussis/tetanus (DPT), polio, seasonal and 2009 H1N1 flu, and varicella as appropriate for your age. This will protect you and also the people you are going to help.
  
  • Measles has been eliminated from Haiti, but there is a risk of a measles outbreak if someone who has measles travels to Haiti. Therefore, it is very important that you are protected against measles. If you are protected against measles, this ensures that you will not be able to spread the disease in Haiti. Make sure that you have evidence of measles immunity through one of the following ways:
    
    1. evidence of measles vaccination (2 doses), OR
    2. laboratory evidence of immunity or confirmation of disease, OR
    3. having been born before January 1, 1957, as evidence of acquired infection.
    If you are not protected against measles through one of these ways, CDC recommends that you get the MMR vaccine before traveling to Haiti.
  • A current tetanus shot is also very important.
• Hepatitis A or immune globulin (IG): Even if your departure is imminent, one dose of hepatitis A vaccine provides adequate short-term protection for healthy people. For long term protection, a second dose is required 6–18 months after the first dose, depending on the brand of vaccine used.
• Typhoid: There are two vaccines available for typhoid prevention. The injectable vaccine may be preferable to the oral vaccine in cases where travel is imminent. The oral vaccine requires refrigeration and 4 tablets taken every other day over one week.
• Hepatitis B: If your departure is imminent, the first in a three-dose series (day 0, 1 month and 6 months) may provide some protection. An accelerated dosing schedule may be used (doses at days 0, 7, and at 21–30 days with a booster at 12 months).
• Rabies: If your activities in Haiti will bring you into contact with animals such as dogs, cats, bats, mongooses or other carnivores, you should consider pre-exposure rabies vaccination, which is a three-shot series (days 0, 7, and 21 or 28) given before travel. Even if you receive pre-exposure vaccination, you will still need immediate medical treatment if you are bitten or scratched by an animal. (See the Animals section for more information.)
• The vaccine recommendations on this page are based on diseases previously observed in Haiti and the possibility for outbreaks in the aftermath of the earthquake. At this time, vaccines for diseases such cholera and meningitis are not recommended and polio booster vaccination for individuals already fully vaccinated against polio is not recommended.