Would you get the Yellow Fever vaccine?

January 23, 2019 3:46 PM

Having just read a story in the news about a man dying from the yellow fever vaccine, I am terrified about my family getting the same vaccine tomorrow before our trip to Colombia. Should we do it?

My husband, 10 and 7 year old and I will be visiting his family in Colombia next month. We will visit Bogota, and the area around Cali. The vaccine is recommended but not required for travelers, and I just read that the vaccine has a 1 in 500,000 chance of causing death. A risk factor is autoimmune diseases, which one of the kids has a varient of and we have in the extended family. I am having a very hard time weighing the risk of the vaccine vs. not getting vaccinated. What would you do? Thank you for any insight you could provide.

posted by first edition to Health & Fitness (10 answers total)

The CDC would not be recommending the vaccine if the vaccine were more likely to kill you than Yellow Fever is. Yellow Fever has a 1 in 20 chance of causing death. This seems like an easy decision.
posted by brainmouse at 3:51 PM on January 23, 2019 [27 favorites]

I have been vaccinated for YF. I work for an organization that does YF vaccination in response to outbreaks. I also work with people who respond to YF outbreaks. YF is bad and the side effects are very rare. You should disclose the autoimmune disease info to your doctor, but if they clear it, I would get it.
posted by quadrilaterals at 4:11 PM on January 23, 2019 [6 favorites]

I have had the YF and booster, with no problems (that I know of). But personally I wouldn't bother getting it if I were just going to Bogotá and Cali, since they are big cities and not in the lowlands. Both of those factors mean that there is far less likelihood you will even encounter the mosquitoes that carry YF.
posted by nomis at 4:21 PM on January 23, 2019

This is so clearly a discussion to have with your primary care doctor. But, to put this into perspective: the leading cause of death for children in the US is car crashes. So, if you drive your kids around, get the vaccine. Or maybe get it for everyone except the kid with the autoimmune disease.

Also, at least according to the World Health Organization as quoted by CNN, there is apparently a higher risk factor for people over 60, and the man who died was 67.
posted by bluedaisy at 4:52 PM on January 23, 2019

Your GP will not have any specialized knowledge regarding what effect the vaccine will have on a compromised patient. A GP's standard answer will be along the lines of the stats that brainmouse quoted. Speak with a specialist who is familiar with the autoimmune disorder that runs in the family.
posted by vignettist at 5:05 PM on January 23, 2019 [3 favorites]

Do you have access to a travel clinic or an infectious disease doc? Or run it by whichever doctor is managing your kids autoimmune condition. Remember that autoimmune does not necessarily mean immunosuppressed (unless kid is on a immunosuppressive medication or has specific changes in T cell number /function).
posted by basalganglia at 5:14 PM on January 23, 2019

Does the child take medicine for the autoimmune disorder that impacts their immune system? If they take any medicine for it I would consult with the doctor who prescribed it. I recently got YF vaccine for a family trip to a country where it is required for entry, and one family member has to get an exception certificate thing because they cannot take the vaccine for this reason.

Other than that I suspect its much better to get the vaccine. Yellow fever can be quite deadly (according to wiki, half of serious infections lead to death), versus a 1 in 500,000 chance.

Also the vaccine is now rated as giving lifetime protection (no booster needed after 10 years or whatever the previous recommendation was). So if you get it, you never have to worry about doing it again for any future travel.
posted by thefoxgod at 6:37 PM on January 23, 2019

I second checking whether Yellow Fever vaccination is really recommended for travel in Cali and Bogota. We certainly did not end-up getting it for a family trip to Cartagena few years back.
posted by zeikka at 3:56 AM on January 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

When I got vaccinated before a trip to Brazil recently, I asked the doc what happens when you get yellow fever. She looked at me and said calmly and patiently: you get a fever. Then you turn yellow. Then you die.

Honestly if you are this concerned, maybe don't go to Colombia.

Re comment above: there have been recent outbreaks in various parts of South America. Risk varies over time. Just because it was low risk a few year back doesn't mean it is low risk now (and vice versa, of course). You need to check what current assessments are.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:56 AM on January 25, 2019

Response by poster: Thank you for all the responses! We followed the advice of doing more research and found that the vaccine is actually not recommended for Cali and Bogota, the two cities we are visiting. We met with a doctor at a travel clinic, who confirmed this, and we got the typhoid fever vaccine, which is recommended. Something I had not forseen was that the doctor in the travel clinic also had my husband and I get blood tests to make sure the measles vaccinations we had as children were sufficient, as many people of our generation only received one dose of that vaccination rather than the required two. My experience was positive visiting a doctor in a travel clinic and I recommend it for anyone facing decisions about which vaccinations are necessary.
posted by first edition at 10:54 AM on January 25, 2019 [3 favorites]