Getting our travel vaccines was one part of planning that was NOT particularly fun. We knew that we needed to head to a travel clinic, so we made an appointment at passport health. We emailed a list of countries to the nurse ahead of time - this turned out to be a wise choice, since the blank on the standard questionnaire was nowhere near long enough. A nice binder full of information (organized by region) was waiting for us.
It soon became apparent that the nurse was a bit of a hypochondriac and very long winded. She recommended bringing enough malaria prophylaxis for both of us to take daily for the duration of the trip. When she started talking mosquito nets, soaking clothing in permethrin, and rampant polio outbreaks, we started to zone out. It didn’t help that the room was about 80 degrees, stuffy, and her couch was scratchy. When she found out I am a runner, she strongly urged us to get the rabies vaccination series. At the end of our 2 hour appointment, we weren’t quite ready to take the stab. The shots were quite pricey and our insurance was not accepted.
We went home and talked it over for a few days and did some additional research before deciding which vaccines to get. After looking further into our insurance policy (a cadillac plan through my work), we discovered that ALL of the vaccines (with the exception of rabies) are covered at no cost to us. The trick then became finding a provider that was in network to administer the vaccines.
We were able to get everything except yellow fever and japanese encephalitis from the clinic at work. Since no one at work knows about the trip yet, there was the awkward “so where are going that you need all of these shots?” conversation with a coworker. I mumbled something about making vacation plans for next year since i’m finished paying off student loans and luckily, she dropped it. Thanks, Linda! For yellow fever and japanese encephalitis, we had to trek to a hospital downtown. We were in and out relatively fast, and got our coveted yellow cards to go in our passports.
When all was said and done, we were vaccinated against:
- Hepatitis A ($118/dose, 2 dose series)
- Meningitis ($155)
- Tetanus/Diptheria/Pertussis ($87)
- Influenza ($25)
- Polio ($75)
- Typhoid ($100)
- Yellow Fever ($140)
- Japanese Encephalitis ($325/dose, 2 dose series)
We opted out of:
- Measles/Mumps/Rubella booster ($105)
- Rabies ($315/dose, 3 dose series)
*all prices listed are per person, before insurance