Vaccination Schedule

Well as you know, to go to Kenya Vaccinations are needed. The thing is, the clinic’s only open on Tuesdays, and there have to be gaps in between the shots. The vaccines I need are: hepatitis A, yellow fever, tetanus, polio, malaria tablets and typhoid.

To get through them all, there needs to be a schedule, and here it is:

June 30th – Hepatitis B shot #1

July 1st – See the doc. (confirmation of what I need more than anything)

July 7th – Hepatitis A shot #1, Typhoid shot (Typhim VI)

July 16th – Yellow Fever

July 28th – Second Hepatitis B shot #2, Polio shot

November 3rd – Hepatitis B #3

November 10th – Hepetitis A #3

Alright, now that I’ve gone to a doc who knows what’s what concerning the vaccinations, I now know that there is an ‘all-in-one’ vaccine, aka a vaccine cocktail, that deals with all of the required drugs at once. SO, all previous plans have now been canceled, and a new set of dates are to be made at our next visit, after I go to yet another clinic to get the Yellow Fever vaccine, which is only available in some places as it turns out. I breath a sigh of relief to the ease of the new plan, but can’t get over the 8,500 yen that went into the needless shot yesterday…

Note to self: Always check with the doctor before going off and getting stuck with expensive drugs.

You might be thinking: wait, did he say anything about Hepatitis B? Well, you got me there, but I feel it’s better to be safe than sorry. After all, I don’t want to be caught being stingy and only get the necessary while I’ll not only be in the country, but I’ll be eating local foods, meeting local people… yeah I’m a lot more likely of catching something than most tourists into the country.

Not a comforting thought, but it’s the truth.