I’m heading off from U.K. to Australia this year and would like any travellers thoughts on rabies and yellow fever vaccinations.....are they really necessary...also malaria tablets as there seems to be a list of side effects......is a good dose of deet enough..heading Azerbaijan...Turkmenistan..Tajikistan....etc...

Note: I'm no Doctor nor an expert. I would consult a travel clinic; in fact I do everytime I take off to travel.

Still, here's my experience:

Malaria: unless you are in the southern lowland parts of Central Asia below 2500 meters there is no problem. If just passing through those areas, I think Deet would be sufficient.

Rabies: Nasty stuff, and there are differences of opinion here. Do you ride fully geared up, boots, gloves and padded pants? Little risk of dogbite breaking the skin. When off the bike, don't pet unknown, strange animals.

The vaccine buys you a little time- but you still need to find a clinic pretty fast. I decided to take the risk, since I've never in my life been bitten by a dog. (Chased yes, threatened yes, bitten no.)

..............shu

I must admit I’m not too keen on lots of chemicals being pumped into me.....suppose it’s one of those things ya don’t need till you need it....
I’ll see what travel clinic advise....docs told me I need a yellow fever cert for Kyrgyzstan but I don’t think that is correct......

ou dont need it, but it is good to have in these countries.

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www.klausmotorreise.com

I'll be doing a fair few of the same countries on the way as you, and I went first to my NHS GP to get all my standard jabs up to date. They were able to offer some extras as well. For others I consulted my local travel health clinic and they used the below website to decide the others that would be wise, mainly rabies, TBE and Hep B.

I figure you're better off having it and not needing it than needing it and not having it.

https://travelhealthpro.org.uk/countries

Hep A and B definitely. TBE definitely. Standard list (MMR, DtaP, varicella, seasonal influenza, etc.) definitely. Typhoid definitely.

Malaria is more of a danger in areas of lowland Asia, but I doubt you're getting to Australia without spending a lot of time in the lowlands. I've had malaria, and it's remarkably unpleasant besides doing a serious number on your energy level for a while--think anemia, even after killing the parasites themselves.

Yellow fever because why not? You'll probably need it sooner or later if you keep traveling, although not for the Stans. And I've never bothered with rabies, but since the incidence seems to be increasing in a lot of places I'm going to take the plunge before my next trip. If I was headed for the subcontinent, as you may be, I wouldn't hesitate.

There's validity to the whole "I don't want to introduce all sorts of poisons into my body" argument, but it's worth considering that before vaccines now in normal use--Hep, measles, flu, polio--people routinely got sick and often died of these diseases, travelers included. I knew quite a few people who returned home with hepatitis back in the day, and they were not pleased. I know people now just a few years older than me who had childhood polio and now suffer from post-polio syndromes, and they're not happy either. Make your own choices, but be realistic about what's at stake.

[/podium rant]

Hope that's helpful.

Mark

I second Markharf. I AM a MD. I had the rabies series about 10 years ago and still had good antibody level last summer when I did a blood test. The vaccination series had no side effects on me.

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Unimog U500 w/Unicat

Lot of sense in the comments....... my riding pal just had all his..... £700...

Mine were a lot less than that, mind you most of them were free on the NHS