Travel Clinic

NHS and NaTHNaC guidance is to see a travel health professional at least 4 to 6 weeks before you travel. That window exists because several vaccines are given as a course of doses spread over weeks rather than as one injection, and because most vaccines take up to two weeks after the final dose to give full protection.

If your trip is sooner, still come in. At short notice we can usually give the vaccines that matter most for your route, use a shortened dosing schedule where one exists, supply antimalarial tablets, and go through food, water, insect bite and sun precautions that protect you from day one.

Book earlier still if you are going for Hajj or Umrah, taking a long work posting, or visiting family in the country you or your parents came from. That last group is known to be at higher risk of imported infection, because childhood exposure is assumed to give protection that has long since faded. Our travel clinic sits a few minutes from Harrow town centre on Pinner Road, and we often see whole families from Pinner booked in together before a summer trip.

Bring your itinerary or flight dates, any record of past vaccinations you have — a child health record, a GP printout or old certificates — and a list of your medicines and health conditions. If you have no record at all, say so. We work from what is known and top up, rather than guessing.

The consultation itself is a risk assessment. We ask exactly where you are going, because risk differs between a capital city and a rural district in the same country, how long for, what you will be doing, where you will sleep, and whether you are pregnant, immunosuppressed or travelling with young children. We check the current NaTHNaC country page during the appointment rather than working from memory, because outbreak advice changes through the year.

You leave with a written record of what you were given, a plan for any second or third doses, antimalarial tablets if your route needs them, and advice on food and water hygiene, insect bite avoidance and what to do if you fall ill abroad. If your trip falls in the UK flu season, combine the visit with our flu vaccinations.

Yellow fever vaccine may only be given at a registered Yellow Fever Vaccination Centre, and Garner Chemist holds that registration. Most pharmacies do not, which is why people otherwise end up travelling into central London for a single injection.

Some countries ask for an International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis at the border, either because yellow fever circulates there or because you are arriving from a country where it does. The certificate becomes valid 10 days after your first dose, which is the single strongest reason not to leave this to the final week before you fly. Since 2016 the certificate is valid for the life of the person vaccinated, and older certificates printed with a 10-year expiry date remain acceptable.

Yellow fever vaccine is a live vaccine and is not right for everyone. We will not give it, and will refer you for specialist advice instead, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, immunosuppressed, have a thymus disorder or a severe egg allergy, or if the traveller is a baby under 9 months old. Adults over 60 having it for the first time need a careful risk discussion first. Where the vaccine is genuinely unsuitable, talk to us about a medical exemption letter for the border.

Four are normally free on the NHS after a risk assessment: hepatitis A, typhoid, cholera, and the combined tetanus, diphtheria and polio booster. These are funded because they protect against infections picked up from contaminated food, water or soil, which is where most travellers come unstuck.

Everything else is a private service. That includes hepatitis B, which we offer here, along with rabies, Japanese encephalitis, tick-borne encephalitis, meningitis ACWY — the one Hajj and Umrah pilgrims must show proof of — and yellow fever. Malaria tablets are always a private purchase. For infections with no routine travel vaccine, such as dengue and Zika, insect bite avoidance is the protection, and we will show you how to use repellent and nets properly.

If you are unsure which of these you have already had, ask us before you book anything: checking your history costs nothing and takes a couple of minutes at our chemist counter. Travellers come to us from Northwood and Ruislip for the yellow fever service in particular, because registered centres are thin on the ground north-west of London. For a destination-by-destination list, read our full travel vaccinations checklist.