BBC News Online: Health

Holidaymakers 'risk disease'

And more than two-thirds of all Britons travelling abroad do not seek health advice before they go.

Figures from the Public Health Laboratory Service also show that every year 1,100 UK travellers contract malaria and 180 return home with typhoid fever.

Diseases contracted while on holiday, such as Hepatitis A, a viral infection of the liver causing nausea and jaundice, can leave people off work for weeks or months on their return and can cause local outbreaks of disease.

A campaign launched by Joanna Lumley - star of the BBC's Girl Friday programme, where she was filmed living on a desert island - urges all holidaymakers to visit their GP or a travel clinic at least eight weeks before they leave home.

Complacent

Dr Nigel Higson, chairman of the Primary Care Virology Group, an association of GPs with a specific interest in infectious diseases, warned that holidaymakers were becoming more complacent as the numbers travelling to the less developed world increases.

Dr Higson said: "Many people are now going to Thailand or Malaysia or South America, which are fairly high risk areas but were far too expensive a few years ago.

In 1998, 50m trips abroad were made by UK residents - 10% of them to countries that put travellers at a medium to high risk of contracting an infectious disease.

Keith Betton, of the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA), said: "One of ABTA's principal aims is to ensure the security and well-being of holidaymakers who book through any of our members.

Vaccinations are available for many diseases that travellers may be at risk of contracting, but the time for the inoculation to take effect varies.

While tetanus and polio can be done almost immediately before travelling, Hepatitis A requires two weeks and a course of rabies injections takes a month.

There can also be problems with supply - Dr Higson said yellow fever vaccinations were currently difficult to obtain except in packs of five doses.

Travellers are also advised to take anti-malarial drugs to some parts of the world and condoms made to Western standards are recommended to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.