Travel health update

Travel health can be complicated and advice for health professionals is ever-changing. Jane Chiodini seeks out and presents the latest advice to help you keep your practice up to date

ZIKA UPDATE

Information, guidance and resources regarding the Zika virus (ZIKV) situation are being published and updated frequently. It’s important to check you are referring to the latest information. For example, male travellers with no Zika symptoms should now be advised to use condoms for 8 weeks following travel to an area with active ZIKV transmission. A recent report of sexual transmission in a person that was asymptomatic is believed to have occurred between 21 and 36 days after leaving an area with active ZIKV transmission. Such transmission is male-to-female, and male-to-male. Transmission from females to their sexual partners has not been reported. The interim algorithm for assessing pregnant women with a history of travel during pregnancy to areas with active ZIKV transmission, the guidance for primary care document and the algorithm for Zika advice for pregnant women and those planning pregnancy and their partners have all been updated in June 2016. The BBC Panorama documentary, the Zika Baby Crisis, shown in March this year was an excellent programme and remains available to watch for the next 8 months. I‘ve created a page on my website entitled ‘Hot News’ where I’ve put links to all key documents and websites you need to be aware of for your day to day practice at http://www.janechiodini.co.uk /home/hot-news/

DIABETES RESOURCES FOR TRAVELLERS

If you scroll right down to the bottom of the home page on the NaTHNaC website http://travelhealthpro.org.uk you’ll see a variety of resources listed on a black background. Click on the ‘clinic resources’ below the quicklinks heading and you’ll find a variety of factsheets including some for the special risk traveller. One of these is about diabetes, which contains really useful information provided for the traveller with diabetes. There are also a number of links to other important resources, e.g. a table for blood glucose conversion because in some countries, blood glucose is measured in milligrams per 100 millilitres (mg/dl) and not in millimoles per litre (mmol/l). In the summer of 2015, Diabetes UK produced an attractive and helpful booklet - Diabetes and travelling which can be downloaded from the site, while NHS Scotland has produced a very useful interactive site which includes a podcast to help travellers understand the importance and principles of insulin when crossing time zones. Not personally being that knowledgeable on the subject, I’ve found another Diabetes UK publication called MEDS&KIT which is an update guide to all the diabetes meters, medications, pens and pumps available in the UK (2015). And guess what, I’ve created a page for diabetes and travel with links to all these resources and more at http://www.janechiodini.co.uk/news/help/diabetes

NIMENRIX VACCINE

The conjugate meningococcal ACW135 and Y vaccine Nimenrix, which was originally distributed by GlaxoSmithKline, has been transferred and is now being supplied by Pfizer. This vaccine still carries the black triangle symbol, which means that it is subject to special surveillance for adverse effects – details on the Electronics Medicines Compendium can be found at www.medicines.org.uk/emc/history/26514#version9

For information see the medical information website at pfizermedicalinformation.co.uk

YFVC EXAMPLE

If your practice is a yellow fever centre, be sure to check out the example provided by NaTHNaC to help you write your yellow fever vaccine certificates correctly after 11 July 2016. Completion following vaccination for the validity needs to be written as life of person vaccinated. See http://travelhealthpro.org.uk/changes-to-yellow-fever-certificates-11-july-2016/

HIV DRUG INTERACTIONS TOOLS

The University of Liverpool has recently updated their HIV drug interactions website providing it with a much cleaner, clearer and easier to use interface Their mission statement says: ‘We provide a clinically useful, reliable, comprehensive, up-to-date, evidence-based drug-drug interaction resource, freely available to healthcare workers, patients and researchers.’ It’s a very useful resource – check it out at http://www.hiv-druginteractions.org where links to the app for both Android and IoS are also provided.