Travel health update

Malarone now licensed for extended use; Travel health nursing - career and competence development guidance: new edition; GPC updates guidance on travel immunisations, hepatitis B and vaccines and immunisations; NICE launches BNF app

MALARONE LICENSE CHANGE

The license for the use of atovaquone/proguanil, brand name 'Malarone' when in a malarious country has been changed, from 28 days to 'continue during the period of the stay' and the Summary of Product Characteristics correspondingly updated. Although the UK malaria guidelines advised that this drug could be used for up to one year, this formal change will be welcomed in UK travel medicine. Updated UK Malaria guidelines to be published later this year should reflect this use of the drug. Malarone could now be given to adult and child travellers visiting high risk malarious countries where the drug was appropriate, for one to two days before entering the area, for the length of time they are in the malarious area and for seven days after leaving. Remember to remind your travellers that no malaria chemoprophylaxis guarantees 100% protection, so they should still use bite avoidance measures, and look out for the symptoms of malaria (flu-like illness, including fever, and sometimes diarrhoea and cough) especially in the first one to three months after return, but for up to one year in total. For further information go to www.medicines.org.uk

TRAVEL HEALTH NURSING: CAREER AND COMPETENCE GUIDANCE

The RCN's career and competence development guidance document, first published in 2007, has now been fully updated and re-issued. The new edition includes a new section on an overview of the development of travel medicine in the UK, a review of the provision of travel medicine services in the UK including financial and prescribing issues and also has a brand new travel risk assessment and travel risk management form. This important document is an essential tool for all nurses undertaking travel health but especially those new to the field. It would also help to inform practice managers and GPs of the complexity of this field of practice. Although written for registered nurse in mind, the authors state that much of the information provided is equally applicable to doctors and pharmacists providing travel health services. A fuller review of the document will be published in Practice Nurse shortly, but in the mean time an electronic copy of the document can be obtained from http://www.rcn.org.uk/development/publications or http://www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/78747/003146.pdf

FURTHER UPDATES TO GPC GUIDANCE

The General Practitioner Committee of the BMA has updated its guidance on immunisations, in the the documents 'Focus on travel immunisation', 'Focus on vaccines and immunisations' and Focus on hepatitis B immunisations'. All are of great relevance and interest, but particularly the one on hepatitis B as it updates the previous guidance of 'Hepatitis B vaccination for employers at risk' last published in 2005. The new document relates to hepatitis B immunisation provided for travel, occupational health, lifestyle and for medical reasons. It helpfully explains when a practice should provide hepatitis B immunisation on the NHS or privately, and when it can be charged for. All three documents can be found at www.bma.org.uk and search under 'immunisation' or the titles of the documents provided above.

NICE BNF APP!

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has launched a free British National Formulary (BNF) Smartphone application for download by health care professionals who work for or who are contracted by NHS England.

The NICE BNF app provides easy access to the latest information from the BNF and is available to download free of charge via the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Users will need to enter their NHS Athens user name and password to activate the app and download the content. An app for the British National Formulary for Children (BNFC) is also in the late stages of development