The travel health consultation is an ideal opportunity to ensure that routine immunisations are up to date.
Older travellers, who were young adults at the time routine immunisations were introduced, may not have completed primary courses. For example, although some localities in the UK received tetanus vaccine as part of the childhood programme from the mid-1950s, it was not introduced nationally until 1961 (Salisbury et al 2006).
The Health Protection Agency (2010a) has produced an algorithm detailing the recommended vaccines for individuals with uncertain or incomplete vaccination schedules.