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Launch of Upgraded TRAVAX Website

28 September 2017

The team at TRAVAX are pleased to announce the launch of an upgraded, new look TRAVAX at the end of October 2017. We have commenced the countdown to switchover today, and would like to encourage our users to move across to using the new site well in advance of the switch off. Accessing the upgraded TRAVAX should be a seamless process as your password will remain the same. Please let us know if you encounter any difficulties please email TRAVAX Webmanager

Background to TRAVAX

TRAVAX has been produced and maintained by the Travel and International Health Team at Health Protection Scotland (HPS) for over 30 years and is designed for use by all healthcare professionals in the UK providing health advice to UK travellers. The advice supplements that of TRAVAX’s sister site, fitfortravel, which is written specifically with the general public in mind, and is extensively used. The website is also used internationally by practitioners in more than twenty different countries.

Choosing TRAVAX as your preferred resource for travel health advice, allows you to access valid, reliable and up-to-date information on vaccination, malaria and other travel-associated health risks; there is no statutory requirement in the UK for practitioners to use any specific resource for travel health guidance.

All TRAVAX recommendations are based on up to date and high quality evidence, appraised using systematic methods which can be interrogated by our users to ensure their practice has a logical basis. On those occasions where good evidence is lacking, we transparently seek expert consensus, including from colleagues in Public Health England and NaTHNaC.

Vaccine recommendations

Although TRAVAX is produced in Scotland we are very conscious that many of our users are based in other countries of the UK. We are aware that some aspects of vaccine practice, for example vaccine reimbursement, may differ across the UK, and will seek to highlight when that is the case.

In harmony with the rest of the UK, the vaccine advice on TRAVAX aligns with the recommendations made by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) and published in the Green Book.

Malaria Recommendations

The Scottish Malaria Advisory Group (SMAG) provide advice, recommendations and visual maps on malaria that are incorporated into TRAVAX and fitfortravel. This advice is based upon an analysis of malaria cases reported by endemic countries, the World Health Organization and cases of malaria imported into the UK. The advice is compared with that produced by other European countries, the USA and Public Health England. Whilst we recognise that antimalarial prophylaxis recommendations can vary between different sources of advice and different countries, due to different interpretation of available data, we are confident that our detailed maps and guidance have a sound evidence base. The fully published methods used by SMAG can be accessed here.

We would like to thank all our users for your continued support and feedback over the last three decades.