Advisory Committee on Malaria Prevention in UK Travellers (ACMP)
The Advisory Committee on Malaria Prevention in UK Travellers (ACMP) was set up by the Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) in 1998 to formulate guidelines on malaria prevention in the UK. The members base guidance on evidence and expert opinion. Their wide-ranging expertise includes antimalarial drug resistance, the use of antimalarial drugs and other malaria prevention methods (e.g. insect repellents, bed nets) including those for children and travellers with special medical needs, and the behaviour of UK travellers. The guidelines are used by doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other travel medicine advisors based in the UK and many other countries. The ACMP also responds to enquiries from occupational health specialists, from companies with workers overseas, and from individual specialist travellers. The ACMP updates the whole guidelines as soon as there is a significant change in the distribution or behaviour of malaria, or the need to consider new advice on drugs and anti-insect measures. The third update of the whole guidelines was published in January 2007. Notices and updates are posted on the ACMP web pages whenever the ACMP identifies important new information. The guidelines are also checked to ensure they are in line with advice given by Travax - The A to Z of Healthy Travel and National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC).
Remit of the ACMP
To provide guidelines for health professionals on the prevention of malaria for travellers from the UK, updated annually or more frequently as the need arises for widespread publication in the medical press and in UK travel guidance documents.
The HPA Advisory Committee on Malaria Prevention in UK Travellers will do this in light of data from the HPA Malaria Reference Laboratory, London, the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), World Health Organization Global Malaria Programme and other sources by:
- Assessing new information on methods of malaria prevention for travellers, in relation to both efficacy and any unwanted effects;
- Reviewing patterns of malaria and of resistance to anti-malarial agents and anti-vector measures as determinants of malaria risk to travellers;
- Formulating practical advice on protection against malaria for UK travellers and making this available to those who advise travellers;
- Formulating advice on the treatment of malaria cases imported to the UK.
Coordination and scientific secretarial support is provided by the Centre for Infections. Contact ACMP@hpa.org.uk.
Last reviewed: 11 September 2009
