What typhoid actually is
Typhoid fever is caused by Salmonella Typhi, a bacterium that lives only in people. It is swallowed, not caught from the air: it reaches you through food handled by someone carrying it, or through water that has met sewage. A sustained fever that climbs over several days is the usual first sign, with headache, stomach pain, constipation more often than diarrhoea, and a flat pink rash in some people.
Untreated it is a serious illness. Treated with antibiotics most people recover well, but a minority go on to carry the bacterium for months without symptoms, which is how it keeps circulating.
Why the vaccine is not the whole answer
The injectable vaccine we use protects a majority of people who receive it, not all of them, and it does nothing about the other things that travel the same route - hepatitis A, cholera, the ordinary traveller's diarrhoea that ruins a week. So the jab sits alongside the habits, rather than replacing them.
What that means in practice is unglamorous and effective: bottled or boiled water, no ice from an unknown source, fruit you peel yourself, food that arrives hot rather than warm. Our pharmacists go through this with you, because the advice that works is specific to where you are staying and how you are travelling.
Combining it with the rest of your course
Typhoid and hepatitis A travel together so often that they are frequently given on the same visit, one in each arm. If you need both, say so when you call and we will set aside enough time to do the consultation properly rather than rushing a second appointment.
A combined typhoid and hepatitis A product exists and we can discuss whether it suits you. It is not always the cheaper route once boosters are counted, which is the sort of arithmetic worth doing out loud in the room.