Sri Lanka travel health
Required is not recommended: the first is what the border asks about, the second is what a clinic would suggest. Both, for Sri Lanka, then the number to dial and what care costs a visitor. Applies to every guide in Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka, Ella, Galle, Sigiriya & Dambulla, Kandy.
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 if you are cycling, hiking or staying long
- Japanese encephalitis for a long rural stay
Emergency number
1990 for an ambulance (Suwa Seriya, free and quick), 119 for police
Care for visitors
Good but costly
Better than the region’s reputation. Colombo has good private hospitals — Nawaloka, Asiri, Lanka — where a consultation costs a fraction of European prices and the standard is high. Outside the cities it thins fast, and the road to a hospital is often the slow part. Take insurance that covers evacuation to Colombo, not just repatriation.
Dengue is endemic and peaks after each monsoon, so mosquito cover matters day and night. Rabies is present in dogs and monkeys — do not feed the monkeys at Sigiriya or Dambulla. The sea is the other one: rip currents on the south-west coast take swimmers every season.
The general rules — clinic timing, water, mosquitoes, insurance — are in travel health tips.
The guides in Sri Lanka
Sri LankaSri LankaTea hills, ruined capitals and two coasts with opposite seasons
EllaSri LankaA gap in the hills with tea on every slope, reached on the best train journey in Asia
GalleSri LankaA Dutch fort on a headland, walled, walkable and lived in, with the south coast beaches beside it
Sigiriya & DambullaSri LankaA palace on top of a two-hundred-metre rock, and a cave temple full of Buddhas an hour away
KandySri LankaThe last kingdom of Sri Lanka, around a lake, with the Buddha’s tooth in a temple above it