Travel Vaccines

If you are planning to travel outside the UK your travel health needs will depend on your individual situation and the following considerations:

• Your general health
• Where you are travelling to
• Where you will be staying
• How long you will be staying
• What you will be doing throughout your trip

Lots of useful travel health information is available online from the National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC) website – https://nathnac.net/.

It is important that you read through the information available from NaTHNaC, and complete the form below before contacting NHS Lanarkshire’s Travel Health Service.

Once you have read the information you may require an assessment, further advice and vaccinations before you travel.

Ideally, you should look to organise any vaccinations required for travelling, two to three months before you travel. Please note we need a minimum of eight weeks from when you complete a Travel Health risk assessment. 

If your travel date is less than eight weeks away, please contact us for advice on 01698 687 456.

The first step is for a full travel risk assessment to be carried out. Please contact NHS Lanarkshire’s Travel Health Service by emailing nhslan.travelvaccinations@nhs.scot or calling 01698 687 456. You will then receive a travel risk assessment form to complete and return. A member of the Travel Health Service will then contact you to advise what your next steps are.

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What travel vaccines are provided for free by the NHS?

Following assessment, citizens living in Scotland, may be offered one or more of the follow vaccines free of charge, depending on the risk:

• Cholera
• Hepatitis A
• Diptheria, Polio, tetanus (administered as a combined vaccine)
• Typhoid

The above vaccines are free as they protect against diseases that are considered to present the greatest risk to public health if they were to be brought into the country.

If you require vaccines that are not available free through the NHS or antimalarial tablets you will be signposted to a participating community pharmacy or specialist travel clinic.

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Rabies

Rabies is a viral infection that affects the brain and nerves. It’s spread by infected animals and if left untreated can be fatal. Rabies is prevalent in many countries.

The best way to prevent rabies is to:

• If you are likely to be undertaking high-risk activities e.g. caving, working with animals please ensure you have an assessment done to assess if you would benefit from the vaccine before you travel.
• Seek immediate medical advice if you think you have been exposed, even if you have been vaccinated.

If you are in a country where there’s a risk of rabies, you could be exposed if an animal:

• bites or scratches you
• licks an open wound or broken skin
• licks your eyes, mouth or nose

Urgent advice – seek medical attention if there’s any chance you have been exposed to animal body fluids or an animal known to be infected with rabies.

If you are in Lanarkshire you should phone our travel team on 01698 687456 Monday-Friday 9am-5pm.  If it’s out of hours call NHS 24 on 111.

If you are abroad, seek medical care immediately rather than waiting until you return to the UK.

If you have started a rabies vaccine course abroad, please contact your General Practice service, the out-of-hours service, or the Emergency Department upon arrival in the UK.

After the initial assessment, if appropriate, the attending personnel should contact the Infectious Disease (ID) team on call at University Hospital Monklands.
Telephone: 01236 748748

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Useful Links

• TravelHealth Pro – official advice on vaccines, malaria and country information
• Foreign Office travel advice web page – safety and entry requirements
• NHS Inform travel health – general advice about staying healthy abroad

For further travel health and vaccinations information visit the NHS Inform website.

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