Health & safety
Health and Safety in Nigeria
Nigeria's health and safety picture has three practical layers: the entry requirements that apply to every visitor, the general tropical-Africa health preparation worth doing before you travel, and the genuine regional variation in current travel conditions that makes checking official guidance for your specific itinerary worthwhile.
Updated 2026-08-16
The yellow-fever certificate is mandatory, not optional
A valid yellow-fever vaccination certificate is checked at entry for every visitor, and arriving without one means being refused entry — this isn't a recommendation, it's an enforced requirement. The vaccination itself must be administered at least ten days before travel to be valid, and the resulting certificate is valid for life, so a past yellow-fever vaccination from an earlier trip to a country with the same requirement still counts. Plan this well ahead of departure rather than in the final days before a trip.
Standard tropical-Africa health preparation
Malaria prophylaxis is strongly recommended nationwide — discuss the options (commonly Lariam, Malarone or doxycycline) with a travel-medicine specialist ahead of your trip, since the right choice depends on your own health history and trip length. Recommended vaccinations beyond yellow fever include typhoid, hepatitis A and B, meningitis (particularly relevant in the drier northern meningitis belt) and rabies for longer stays or rural travel. Nigeria's private hospitals in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt provide a good standard of care for visitors, but comprehensive travel and health insurance with medical evacuation cover is essential — public healthcare infrastructure varies considerably by region, and evacuation cover is what actually protects you if something goes seriously wrong away from a major city.
Regional conditions vary — check current official guidance
Nigeria is a large country and travel conditions genuinely differ by region and can change over time, with some areas carrying specific government travel advisories at any given moment. Rather than relying on a single national picture, check the current notice from your own government (the UK FCDO, US Department of State, Australian Smartraveller, German Auswärtiges Amt, Swiss EDA or Austrian BMEIA all publish regularly updated country and regional guidance) close to your actual travel dates and specifically for the regions on your itinerary. This is genuinely more useful than any general safety summary, since official guidance is updated as conditions change and yours won't be.