RCN and NaTHNaC 9th Joint Travel Health Conference 2026
Featuring the latest updates and future trends in travel health
26 Sep 2026, 09:00 - 15:30
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Join us for this annual one-day conference featuring the latest updates and future trends in the fields of travel medicine and infectious diseases.
Have your questions answered by experts and gain access to current evidence-based research and education to stay up to date and re-establish confidence and competence in the travel health consultation.
The event will be hosted on Zoom Events, enabling a highly interactive and engaging experience for delegates.
Book with two or more colleagues to receive a 10% discount.
Who should attend?
This event is aimed at all healthcare practitioners involved in delivering travel health services to travellers from the UK, including nurses, pharmacists and other allied health care professionals.
Benefits of attending:
- Accrue up to 6.5 hours of CPD to count towards your revalidation
- Hear from eminent keynote speakers on contemporary issues in travel health
- Consider and highlight best practice at national and local level
- Network with travel health nursing professionals from across the UK
Need a helping hand with securing time off or funding to attend? Please download these helpful hints and tips.
Learning outcomes:
- Develop confidence and strengthen knowledge and skills to advise UK travellers
- Stay abreast of the latest research and evidence in the field, to enable best practice
- Get up to date with information on the latest guidance on travel-related vaccines, including dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever vaccines
- Explore challenges and solutions through presentations on case-based scenarios
- Find the latest trends in travelling beyond borders for medical tourism purposes
- Discover what’s on the horizon for national and international recommendations and requirements for international travel
What previous attendees have said about the Travel Health Conference:
‘I find this event interesting, educational and informative. All the speakers were excellent.’
‘Having not done a travel consultation for a while, it has given me more confidence to be able to add the little tit bits into a consultation.’
Please be aware, when you join this event your name, email address and organisation may be visible to other attendees. The meeting may be attended by both RCN members and non-members.
RCN Events
RCNevents@rcn.org.uk
02076473577
Online
Programme topics will include:
• Challenging scenarios in practice, including yellow fever
• Travelling and pregnancy
• Medical tourism
• Updates on Dengue and Chikungunya
• ‘Hot off the press’ information, reports and resources
Please note the programme details and timings are subject to change.
Dr Oliver Koch DPhil FRCP FFTM
Dr Oliver Koch DPhil FRCP FFTM is a Consultant in Infectious Diseases at the Regional Infectious Diseases Unit, NHS Lothian, Edinburgh, and an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. His clinical interests include tropical medicine, travel medicine, tuberculosis, and HIV. He holds the Diploma in Travel Medicine from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, where he serves on the Faculty of Travel Medicine Executive Board. He is Clinical Lead for the NHS Lothian Travel Clinics and a member of the UKHSA Malaria Expert Advisory Group. He is also Principal Investigator on several clinical trials and surveillance studies.
Kath Lynch
Kath has worked in Tropical Diseases and Travel Medicine since 1997 and has been a NaTHNaC yellow fever associate trainer since 2006. She became a Member of the Faculty of Travel Medicine (RCPS Glasgow) after completing her MSc in International Travel and Health in 2009 and gained a diploma in adult education in 2015.
She has provided travel health services for organisations including the Natural History Museum, VSO, BBC, London Zoo, MASTA, and major London hospitals, and previously worked as a practice nurse.
Now Lead Nurse at Trailfinders Travel Clinic, she specialises in complex traveller consultations and shared decision making around yellow fever vaccination.
Clare Henderson
Clare Henderson is an experienced nurse and travel medicine specialist with more than 25 years’ experience in the field. She runs TREC Travel Health Training and has previously led a private travel clinic.
She holds the Diploma in Travel Medicine and became a member of the Faculty of Travel Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow after passing the first entrance exam in 2012. Clare is now an examiner for the Faculty of Travel Medicine.
She currently works as a Senior Clinical Nurse Specialist within the Vaccination and Immunisation Division at Public Health Scotland, following her previous role as a senior nurse within the TRAVAX team.
Victoria Browne
Victoria Browne has specialised in travel medicine since 2007 and has extensive experience across both NHS and private healthcare settings in the UK and the Middle East. She holds a Diploma in Travel Medicine from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (RCPSG) and has also completed the Travel Medicine Short Course at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
Victoria is currently the Senior Clinical Lead Nurse and Travel Lead at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, where she co-leads the delivery and ongoing development of specialist travel health services. The hospital provides both a private travel medicine service and a NHS Complex Travel Medicine Service.
Kendal Andreason
Kendal Andreason is Professional Lead for Acute and Emergency Care and Defence Nursing at the Royal College of Nursing. Over a career spanning military service, expedition medicine and healthcare leadership, she has worked in extreme environments across the Middle East, Africa and Asia. From operational deployments in Afghanistan to remote expeditions in Namibia and Oman, she has witnessed first-hand the effects of heat on health, performance and decision-making. Kendal combines stories from the field with evidence-based practice to explore how travellers, clinicians and organisations can prepare for, prevent and respond to heat-related illness.
Robert Condie
Rob Condie - Head of Medical Tourism policy at the Department of Health and Social Care since 2024, having previously occupied a wide range of policy and operational roles including Covid Testing, the Managed Quarantine Service and Community Health Services. Rob spent his early career in the wine trade before joining the Civil Service via the Fast Stream graduate scheme, and lives in Stockport with his wife and two young children.
Dr Dipti Patel MBBS FRCP FFOM FFTM RCPS (Glasg) LLM OBE
Dr Dipti Patel is a consultant in occupational medicine and travel medicine. She is the Director of the National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC), established in 2002 by the UK Department of Health with the broad remit of protecting the health of British travellers. She is also the Chief Medical Officer at the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), where she leads a multidisciplinary team supporting over 10,000 government staff and their families based in missions across 178 countries and territories, as well as 14,000 business travellers. Additionally, she is an honorary lecturer in Population Health, Health Services Research, and Primary Care within the School of Health Sciences at Manchester University.
Dipti is a member of the UK Malaria Expert Advisory Group, the Travel Subcommittee of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, and the WHO International Travel and Health Guideline Development Group. She also participated in the UK Commission on Human Medicine’s Expert Working Group on yellow fever vaccine, which was convened following two fatal adverse reactions to the vaccine in the UK in 2018 and 2019.
Dipti is Editor in Chief for Occupational Medicine, an associate editor for Travel Medicine and Infectious Diseases and New Microbes and New Infections. She is also a co-editor of the ABC of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Her previous roles include serving as a Non-Executive Director at the Health Protection Agency, the Director of Clinical Services at the Medical Advisory Service for Travellers Abroad, and Consultant in Occupational Medicine at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
Dipti has a special interest in complex travellers, travel health education, medico-legal issues, and occupational travellers.
|
Type |
Ex VAT |
VAT |
Inc VAT |
|
RCN Member |
£ 80.00 |
£ 16.00 |
£ 96.00 |
|
Non-Member |
£ 120.00 |
£ 24.00 |
£ 144.00 |
|
RCN Member: pre-reg student/HCA/ retired member |
£ 48.00 |
£ 9.60 |
£ 57.60 |
|
RCN representatives (25% discount) |
£ 60.00 |
£ 12.00 |
£ 72.00 |
Join the RCN to be immediately eligible for the member rate
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10% discount – group discount when three or more delegates book together.
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As promised, please find answers following Dr. Oliver Koch's presentation..
Q1. Is the efficacy after one dose of 81% in dengue naive patients or previously infected?
A. The 81% figure presented previously was not specifically for either dengue-naïve or previously infected individuals. It came from an exploratory analysis of the TIDES trial looking at efficacy during the three-month interval between the first and second doses, across the study population as a whole. The subsequently published analysis reported a very similar one-dose efficacy of 82.1%.
Importantly, that one-dose estimate was not adequately stratified by baseline dengue serostatus, so we cannot say that the 81% applies specifically to dengue-naïve individuals.
There is now useful real-world evidence. A study published this month looked at adolescents aged 10–15 years in São Paulo State during the 2024–2025 dengue outbreak:
Krug Mareto L, Brumatti TS, Dias de Oliveira R, et al. 1-Year follow-up evaluation of TAK-003 dengue vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease and hospitalisation in adolescents during the 2024–2025 outbreak in São Paulo, Brazil: a test-negative case-control study. eClinicalMedicine. 2026;99:104181.
Vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic dengue was 59.2% after one dose and 73.1% after two doses. Against dengue hospitalisation, effectiveness was 74.6% after one dose and 87.9% after two doses.
The study could not distinguish vaccine effectiveness according to previous dengue infection. We therefore cannot directly extrapolate its one-dose estimate to dengue-naïve travellers. Also note that this study was done in adolescents in an endemic area. Data from the original TIDES programme suggest that overall protection is lower in baseline-seronegative than seropositive individuals, so previous dengue exposure is likely to remain relevant.
My practical take-home would therefore be: one dose appears to provide meaningful protection, but the evidence does not support treating it as equivalent to a completed course. The recommended two-dose schedule, three months apart, should therefore remain the standard.
Q2. If a person has had confirmed dengue previously, should they be advised to have a course even if it was several years ago and travel frequently to the Caribbean?
A. Yes. If the person has had confirmed dengue previously and continues to travel frequently to the Caribbean, I would generally recommend considering a course of Qdenga, assuming there are no contraindications.
Current UK guidance recommends that Qdenga can be considered in people aged 4 years and over with a confirmed or likely history of previous dengue infection who will be travelling to areas where dengue occurs.
The fact that the dengue infection was several years ago would not put me off vaccinating. In fact, the Green Book advises considering delaying vaccination for around one year after a recent confirmed infection because there is some short-term cross-protection following natural dengue. Once the infection was several years ago, that is no longer relevant.
Frequent travel to the Caribbean would strengthen the case because it means repeated opportunities for exposure to another dengue serotype. Protection is particularly relevant after a previous dengue infection because a subsequent infection with a different serotype carries a greater risk of severe dengue.
I would therefore recommend the standard two-dose Qdenga course, three months apart, alongside continued mosquito-bite avoidance
Q3. What examples of situations could dengue be considered with no history of previous infection? Have you come across any of these examples?
A. The updated UK guidance does not give a specific list of situations where Qdenga should be offered to someone with no previous history of dengue. It says that vaccination may be considered, but recommends discussion with a travel-health clinician experienced in assessing the individual balance of risks and benefits.
Personally, I think situations in which I would be more inclined to consider it would include travel to an area experiencing a significant dengue outbreak or very high transmission, particularly for a prolonged stay or repeated travel. Duration, destination, season and intensity of transmission all influence the traveller's risk.
WHO guidance is also interesting here: it suggests that, for a dengue-naïve traveller, the most favourable benefit–risk situation would be an ongoing outbreak caused predominantly by DENV-1 or DENV-2, because protection against DENV-3 and DENV-4 has not been demonstrated in baseline-seronegative individuals.
The uncertainties need to be discussed clearly with the traveller: overall efficacy is lower in those who are dengue-naïve, and the efficacy and theoretical safety concerns around DENV-3 and DENV-4 remain unresolved. Ultimately, this is a shared decision based on the individual's exposure risk and attitude to those uncertainties.
That said, the accumulating safety experience is reassuring. The September 2026 Green Book notes that more than 32 million doses had been distributed globally without a signal of severe dengue emerging in vaccinated seronegative individuals, although experience with DENV-3 and DENV-4 remains limited.
Ultimately, this comes down to an individual risk–benefit discussion and shared decision making. It is also worth noting that national guidance is not uniform across Europe: France now recommends Qdenga irrespective of previous dengue infection for travellers to epidemic areas and for stays of more than one month in endemic areas. That illustrates that there is a spectrum of expert interpretation of the same evidence.
Q4. Vimkunya: which respects to dropping immunity response, what is advice on 2nd vaccine/ booster dose at e.g. second trip at 1-3 years time
A. At present, there is no recommendation for a booster or repeat dose of Vimkunya, so if somebody returns for another trip one, two or three years later we currently do not have evidence on which to base a routine revaccination schedule.
We know that antibody responses fall over time — in the phase III studies, seroresponse in 12–64-year-olds fell from around 98% at three weeks to around 85% at six months — and longer-term follow-up is therefore important.
I think it is too early to recommend a second dose simply because someone is travelling again one to three years later. The need for, and optimal timing of, any booster remains to be established, and guidance may well evolve as longer-term immunogenicity and effectiveness data become available.
Q. Could we have some examples in a travel clinic when vaccination with Dengue and Chikungunya has been agreed between patient and clinician? Particularly for a dengue seronegative patient.
A. See above regarding dengue.
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Page last updated - 26/09/2026
