benjammin, are you allergic to eggs? The flu vaccine is cultured in eggs so anyone allergic to eggs could have a reaction. But it's impossible to "get the flu" from a flu shot--the shot does not contain the complete flu virus. I know that many people say this and I don't discount the symptoms, but you're not actually coming down with the flu.

Another possibility (just my guess) is that you have a particularly aggressive immune system that really kicks in when you're exposed to the flu-like proteins in the flu shot and makes you feel awful. It's sort of the other extreme of the problem with many elderly getting a flu shot--their immune systems don't mount a sufficiently strong defense against the flu shot, so they aren't as fully protected as a younger person.

Hepatitis A and B are a good shot to get that many older people do not normally have, but for these other Third World diseases? Chances you'll ever encounter them here are tiny, even in disaster scenarios, and some shots/meds carry their own risks. As benjammin noted, anti-malaria meds are associated with pysch problems. If you've gotten the usual recommended shots, then I think you're pretty well covered. Personally, in a mass shelter situation, I'd worry most about a measles epidemic. Highly contagious and childhood vaccinations do lose their effectiveness into adulthood (measles is the first "M" in the MMR shot).

And many of these "travellers" immunizations require multiple visits, can be difficult to get in your area, and can be expensive.

In a disaster scenario where you have already had the usual shots, I think that getting adequest rest, drinking clean water, avoiding large crowds, and following standard food and waste sanitation principles will allow you to avoid getting sick from almost all of these nasty bugs. Oh, and take adequate precautions around other people's wounds and/or dead bodies to minimize contact with possibly infectious blood and body fluids.

Soap and water are marvelous weapons against disease. Yikes, another reason to store even MORE water! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />