9 January 2009

The Health Protection Agency report on Foreign travel-associated illness – a focus on those visiting friends and relatives

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has published its latest report on foreign travel associated illness.  This report focuses on infectious diseases acquired by those travelling abroad to visit friends and relatives (VFR) in their (or their family’s) country of origin [1].

Visiting friends and relatives is now the second most common reason for travelling abroad in the United Kingdom. The report summarises surveillance data available for malaria, typhoid and paratyphoid, and hepatitis A in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland as of 2007. The incidence of malaria, typhoid and paratyphoid was found to be disproportionately higher amongst VFR travellers. Contributing factors include not seeking travel health advice and not using preventive measures.

The report makes a number of recommendations to ensure that VFR travellers are made aware of possible risks to their health.These recommendations include opportunistically asking patients during primary care consultations about their future travel plans, providing written travel health advice in different languages and engaging community leaders in health promotion initiatives.

The report is available to download from the HPA website. Hard copies will be available in February by emailing tmhs@hpa.org.uk.

The most up to date surveillance data for travel-associated diseases is available on the Travel Health page of the Health Protection Agency website.

Reference

1. Health Protection Agency. New report on foreign travel-associated illness – a focus on those visiting friends and relatives. Health Protection Report 2009; 3 (01): news. Available online at http://www.hpa.org.uk/hpr/archives/2009/hpr0109.pdf