The WHO and the Health Department of South Africa developed a brochure – Health advice for travellers to the FIFA World Cup – which includes information about required immunizations and other health precautions. The full text section on vaccinations is below:

Vaccinations

Before travelling, you must be up-to-date on your routine travel vaccinations. These include diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, and mumps. Making sure your measles and polio vaccinations are up-to-date is especially important – there have

been recent outbreaks of measles in South Africa, and polio has been eliminated from South Africa and must not be re-introduced.

If you are coming from a country where polio cases occurred recently, this vaccination is crucial (see www.polioeradication.org/casecount.asp ) for countries where polio cases occurred recently).

As well as the essential vaccines, your doctor might suggest you get others. What extra vaccines you need depends on where in South Africa you’re going, and what you’ll be doing when you get there. Other vaccines you might need include hepatitis A, hepatitis B and typhoid fever.

Yellow fever

If you are arriving in South Africa from an area at risk of yellow fever, you must have a valid certificate of yellow fever vaccination. This certificate must show you were vaccinated at least 10 days before travelling, and not more than 10 years before arriving in South Africa. Find out from your doctor what areas are at risk of yellow fever transmission: if you need the right papers and you don’t have them, you will be refused entry to South Africa. Please also note that if you are transiting through a yellow fever area, you’ll need the vaccine as well – no matter how short a time you spend in transit.

Flu: Seasonal Influenza and Pandemic A(H1N1) Influenza

It’s going to be winter in South Africa during the World Cup, and this means you’ll be more at risk from influenza, or flu. Vaccination is the best protection against flu. If you are coming to South Africa for the World Cup, you should get vaccinated against seasonal flu and Pandemic A(H1N1) Influenza. In most countries, routine flu

vaccinations already include protection against Pandemic A(H1N1) Influenza, but do check this with your doctor.

If you are at high risk of serious disease from flu viruses, it’s even more important that you receive the right flu vaccinations. You should make flu vaccinations a priority if you’re pregnant or elderly; if you have a chronic disease; or if your immune system is already compromised.

http://www.who.int/ith/updates/health_advice_2010_world_cup.pdf