Colombia travel health
Required is not recommended: the first is what the border asks about, the second is what a clinic would suggest. Both, for Colombia, then the number to dial and what care costs a visitor. Applies to every guide in Colombia: Cartagena, Medellín, Santa Marta, Bogotá.
Required to enter
Nothing. No vaccination certificate is asked for at the border.
Recommended
- Hepatitis A
- Typhoid
- Tetanus up to date
- Yellow fever if you are going to the Amazon, the Pacific coast or Tayrona — some parks now ask for the certificate
- Rabies for rural or long stays
Emergency number
123
Care for visitors
Good and affordable
Private hospitals in Cartagena, Bogotá and Medellín are good and inexpensive by European standards, which is why medical tourism is a real industry here. They expect payment or an insurance guarantee before treating. Public facilities are stretched.
Do not drink the tap water outside Bogotá and Medellín. Dengue is present on the Caribbean coast year-round. Yellow fever vaccination needs 10 days to take effect, so it is not a last-minute item.
The general rules — clinic timing, water, mosquitoes, insurance — are in travel health tips.
The guides in Colombia
CartagenaColombiaA walled Caribbean city in permanent colour
MedellínColombiaEternal spring, cable cars up the hillsides, and a city that reinvented itself
Santa MartaColombiaWhere the Sierra Nevada falls into the Caribbean, an hour from the jungle
BogotáColombiaA capital at 2,600 metres, with a mountain at the end of every street