HIV-positive travelers should exercise a little extra care to keep themselves safe, healthy and happy. The following are some of the major precautions. The immunizations necessary for travelers with HIV vary according to the destination. All travelers must have a tetanus-diphtheria booster within the past ten years. Those who have never had hepatitis A require gamma globulin shots.
Most destinations still have polio, some have typhoid fever and a few have epidemics of meningitis.
Vaccinations to prevent these illnesses are available. The live oral polio and typhoid vaccines are not appropriate for patients with HIV, though, so the injectable inactivated forms must be given. The only available yellow fever vaccine is a live virus vaccine. To our knowledge, there are no reported cases of illness from this vaccine in persons with HIV, but it still is not generally recommended for HIV-infected individuals. Since the yellow fever risk varies greatly from locale to locale in South America and Africa, take into account your individual travel itinerary when deciding about this vaccine.