Health, vaccinations and medical care in Colombia

Yellow fever, which is now a real gate check

Colombia declared a yellow fever health emergency in April 2025 and the rules that came with it are still running.

• To enter the country, a certificate is required only if you are arriving from or transiting a small list of high-risk countries - Angola, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. Most visitors are not affected.
• To enter a national park, it is compulsory. Parques Nacionales made the vaccination card mandatory in April 2025 for parks including Tayrona and the Sierra Nevada. People are turned away at the gate for not having it.
• The vaccine must have been given at least 10 days before you enter a risk area. That is the number that ruins itineraries: a jab the week you fly does not count.
• Get it before you leave home and carry the yellow card, not a photo of it.

Everything else medical

• Insurance is not a condition of entry for tourists and you should still treat it as compulsory. Private care is good and it is billed privately.
• Private clinics in Bogotá and Medellín are genuinely excellent - the country has a serious medical-tourism industry. Public hospitals and anything in a small town are poorly equipped, and rural ambulance cover is unreliable.
• 123 is the ambulance number, and it works nationally.
• Only Bogotá's tap water is reliably safe. Elsewhere, and certainly on the coast, drink bottled and skip the ice in the smaller places.
• Dengue, Zika, chikungunya and malaria are all present below about 1,700 m - the coast, the Amazon and the Llanos. Repellent, long sleeves at dusk, and antimalarials worth discussing with a travel clinic if you are going to the jungle.
• Altitude affects more people than they expect. Bogotá at 2,640 m, and higher in the páramo. Take the first two days gently.

Pharmacies and medicines

• Droguerías are on every corner in the cities and thin on the ground rurally. Pharmacists are helpful and many drugs sold on prescription elsewhere are over the counter here.
• Bring your own medication in its original packaging with a copy of the prescription, and have the prescription written with generic names in Spanish if you might need a refill.