Travel Trade Can Benefit From New Travel Vax and Anti-Malarial Planning Service

A new service has launched to add clarity for those visiting far-flung or exotic places, heading off backpacking or taking a cruise to various ports of call outside of Europe or to parts of the Mediterranean bordering Africa or southwest Asia.  

Pinpoint Travel Health enables travellers to avoid invalidating their travel insurance policy, if they do not have the ‘correct’ or ‘recommended’ vaccinations or anti-malarial treatments before they travel.  By having customers utilise the service, tour operators can potentially avoid associated travel health issues emerging during a tour, cruise, trek or adventure holiday and disrupting a schedule.

What is deemed ‘correct’ or ‘recommended’ is hard for the average holidaymaker to fathom.  Even after significant amounts of time on Internet searches and Government websites, you can still not be 100% sure whether a vaccination or anti-malarial treatment is required.  

The vagueness is typically due to the advice being very general in nature.  It often covers all bases and tells you to order a vaccination, even if the disease is only a seasonal one and not occurring at the time you are travelling – or only in one part of a country, which you shall not be visiting.  

Similarly, it might be that you only need a vaccination if taking part in a certain activity or taking up a post as an aid worker, but websites won’t usually highlight that.

It can get very costly to have multiple vaccinations – potentially exceeding the cost of your holiday itself.   Sometimes, your itinerary does not actually require them.

This foggy aspect to travel has been cleared up by Pinpoint Travel Health’s service.  This combines cutting-edge technology and data from leading sources, including the World Health Organisation (WHO), with top clinical experts’ insight, delivered daily.

Travellers using the Pinpoint Travel Health service, can check out their holiday itinerary and the vaccinations and anti-malarials that might be required, with pinpoint precision.

By turning to Pinpoint Travel Health’s ‘Travel Health Brief’ service, and taking a short amount of time to fill in trip details, they can zoom in on your destination or places they will visit, right down to the level of an individual hotel.   They can plot out an entire trip if moving between locations, whether by land, sea or air, visualising their movements through digital mapping.

Screening questions assess when they are travelling, to where, their age, their activities to be undertaken during their trip and any health conditions, including pregnancy, allergies and current medications.  1.4 billion different variables are handled by the platform, as it produces a tailored and individual report, specifically for them and their precise trip.

The report highlights any diseases with which they could come into contact during their travels and will state which anti-malarials might be suitable.  Armed with this report – which costs just £15 (inc VAT), they can then consult with a travel clinic which will arrange the vaccinations or anti-malarials they actually need, rather than ones they may or may not require.  The Travel Health Brief will even tell them which clinics are closest to them.

This helps keep travel insurance valid but can also save money on what’s not medically necessary for a trip.  It will also highlight any issues a vaccine could cause, in terms of negative interactions with other medications. The time and effort it will save, in otherwise having to check all of this, is a travel godsend for many travellers.

Families should complete a Travel Health Brief for all members, as personalised briefs take into account age and individual medical history.  Any traveller interested in ordering a travel Health Brief can do so at https://pinpointtravelhealth.com  Travel operators wishing to offer this service to clients, can benefit from an affiliate arrangement with Pinpoint Travel Health.  Email support@pinpointtravelhealth.com to discover more.                                                      

Notes to Editors

1. Company credentials

PinPoint Travel Health is a subsidiary of Personalised Diagnostics Limited (PDX), a company run by a team of professionals with over 120 years’ combined experience in maximising the use of IT technology within clinical systems and processes, to improve their effectiveness. Specific and significant experience has been acquired in the field of travel health.

Within the team are Andrew Halliday, Graham Hewitt and Harnek Chera.  Andrew and Graham first came to prominence on the travel health scene at MASTA Travel Health, as Chief Technical Officer and Managing Director respectively, and then joined forces with Harnek to deliver the award winning travel health service, Knowmalaria®.

The management team  also comprises Asif Aziz OBE, Director of Healthcare at Boots UK until a year ago.  Asif was awarded an OBE for services to pharmacy during Covid-19, in the 2022 New Year’s Honours List.

Clive Minihan, a highly respected entrepreneur and co-founder of PDX with Andrew Halliday, completes the heavyweight line-up behind the exciting new travel health venture.

With this clinical expertise, specifically in the field of travel health, Pinpoint Travel Health is a trustworthy service, dedicated to providing the best possible travel health advice.  Offering more than just a data-driven platform, thanks to ongoing clinical reviews of information by the team, it is a source that individual travellers, families, pharmacies and travel clinics can all rely upon and one that operates to the highest independently audited standards.

2. Examples of travel insurance policy wording

The Post Office

Trip disruption exclusion:

“When your trip is cancelled or disrupted because you don’t have the correct vaccination or proof of vaccinations.”

Insure and Go

General Exclusions:

“You are not covered if you are not getting the vaccinations you need or undertaking the recommended preventative treatment (e.g. taking a course of malaria tablets).

Direct Line

“You must follow the advice given by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and your doctor for the destinations you intend visiting on your trip.  This includes getting all recommended vaccinations and taking sufficient supplies of your prescription medicine with you.”

Staysure

What is not covered

“Any claim where you do not hold the required confirmation of vaccination documentation, for example a vaccination passport. “

Ends

Editors notes

PinPoint Travel Health is an advanced software-driven travel health and vaccination platform that helps any traveller stay healthy during their exploration of the world. It provides provides comprehensive and personalised Travel Health Briefs. These equip travellers with all of the essential information and recommendations specific to their travel destination, no matter how remote or off-the-beaten-track. it includes potential hazards associated with the destination or itinerary. It also lists all recommended and required vaccinations and uses advanced algorithms to check the clinical appropriateness of vaccines and antimalarials, so as to prevent unwanted drug interactions with existing medications.