Typhoid fever exists somewhere in the borderlines of the neglected tropical diseases. Its history in Europe and North America, and market for vaccination of travelers, means that typhoid is not entirely in the pharmaceutical public health wilderness. Travel immunization recommendations, however, are based on the results of efficacy trials performed in typhoid‐prone areas, rather than on the evidence of direct effectiveness in people journeying from low‐risk settings. Two recent epidemiological studies address vaccine effectiveness in travelers, 1,2 one of which is in this issue of JTM . In that study, Wagner and colleagues used the detailed enteric fever surveillance records of the English public health services to compare typhoid Vi‐polysaccharide (ViPS) vaccine history among typhoid and paratyphoid cases. 2 They estimated that vaccine effectiveness against typhoid was 65% over 3 years in travelers, after multivariable adjustment, consistent with efficacy trials. Their approach, using the indirect cohort design or “Broome method,” first developed to examine pneumococcal vaccine efficacy across different serotypes, 3 is well suited to the question. Paratyphoid cases are suitable controls for typhoid because the geographies in which they arise and the routes of acquisition are similar. Crucially, ViPS vaccine does not protect against paratyphoid: for unbiased estimates of typhoid vaccine effectiveness, it is necessary to have equal probability of paratyphoid fever notification in ViPS‐vaccinated and ‐unvaccinated groups. 4 … Corresponding Author: Conall H. Watson, MRPharmS, MFPH, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK. E‐mail: conall.watson{at}lshtm.ac.uk