CDC Releases 2016 Edition of the Yellow Book

What

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released the 2016 edition of “CDC Health Information for International Travel,” commonly known as the Yellow Book. Nicknamed for its yellow cover and published biennially, the book is the ultimate guide for healthy international travel. The most recent version includes updated sections on emerging global diseases, including Ebola, MERS and chikungunya. The 2016 edition also features expanded guidelines for 16 popular travel destinations, including Brazil, Cambodia, Dominican Republic, and Haiti.

The 2016 edition includes the following new features:

• Yellow fever vaccination recommendation maps for 10 countries
• 15 country-specific malaria risk maps
• Comprehensive advice for health care workers traveling to provide care overseas
• Discussion of complementary and alternative health approaches to travel medicine
• Commentary on the cost analysis of travel health care

Popular features from previous editions remain in the 2016 edition, including information on cruise ship travel, food and water precautions, and health advice for international adoptions.

When

Friday, July 10, 2015

Where

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/yellowbook-home

Background

A team of over 200 experts updates this health guide every two years. The Yellow Book provides the latest official CDC recommendations to keep international travelers safe and healthy. It includes a complete catalog of travel-related diseases and up-to-date vaccine and booster recommendations. But the information in the book does not stop with infectious diseases. It also includes advice about preventing and treating common travel-related ailments such as altitude illness, motion sickness, and jet lag. The book offers useful tips on topics such as traveling with pets, packing a travel health kit, avoiding counterfeit medications in foreign countries, and getting travel health and evacuation insurance for emergencies. In addition, the Yellow Book provides advice for travelers with unique health needs, such as people traveling with young children, individuals with disabilities or chronic illnesses, and those traveling for humanitarian aid work or study abroad. The Yellow Book is written primarily for health professionals but is a useful resource for anyone interested in healthy international travel.

“Venturing out to see the world has many rewards, but travelers may also face health risks at their destination. Travelers can minimize those risks by receiving appropriate pre-travel health care as they prepare for any trip. With the 2016 edition of the Yellow Book, we offer the US government’s most current and comprehensive reference for clinicians who provide travel-related health care. The book can also be an excellent resource for travelers to learn more about staying healthy while they are overseas. We hope the new edition is useful to a wide audience, from the most experienced travel medicine specialists to first time travelers abroad,” said Gary Brunette, M.D., chief of CDC’s Travelers’ Health Branch.

For travelers and clinicians who want to take the Yellow Book with them, a new mobile app with the complete 2016 edition will be available for purchase on iOS and Android devices in September. The Yellow Book is published in print by Oxford University Press and is available to order from their www.cdc.gov/travel. In addition to providing the Yellow Book, the CDC Travelers’ Health website lets travelers search by destination and find information about basic travel health preparations and what to do if sick or injured while traveling. It is updated as travel health threats emerge and new information becomes available.

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES