India travel health
Required is not recommended: the first is what the border asks about, the second is what a clinic would suggest. Both, for India, then the number to dial and what care costs a visitor. Applies to every guide in India: Agra & the Taj Mahal, Varanasi, Goa, Jaipur, Kerala Backwaters.
Required to enter
- Yellow fever certificate, but only if you are arriving from a country where yellow fever is present
Recommended
- Hepatitis A
- Typhoid
- Tetanus up to date
- Rabies — India has the world’s highest rate of rabies deaths
- Japanese encephalitis for rural stays
- Hepatitis B for longer stays
Emergency number
112, or 102 for an ambulance
Care for visitors
Good but costly
Private hospitals in the big cities are genuinely excellent and inexpensive, which is why medical tourism is a major industry. Standards drop sharply outside them, and Agra in particular is thin — serious cases go to Delhi, two hours away. Payment up front is expected.
Never drink tap water or take ice outside good hotels. Traveller’s diarrhoea affects a large share of visitors — give street food a few days. Any animal bite or scratch, including from monkeys at the monuments, means a clinic the same day.
The general rules — clinic timing, water, mosquitoes, insurance — are in travel health tips.
The guides in India
Agra & the Taj MahalIndiaA tomb built for one person, visited by eight million a year
VaranasiIndiaThe oldest continuously lived-in city on earth, where the Ganges is lined with steps and funeral pyres
GoaIndiaPortuguese churches, Arabian Sea beaches, and no hurry at all
JaipurIndiaA pink city laid out on a grid in 1727, with a fort on every hill above it
Kerala BackwatersIndiaNine hundred kilometres of lagoons and canals behind the coast, crossed on a converted rice barge