Review of 1 year's activity in the Grampian travel clinic: the importance of the oil industry.

BACKGROUND: A review of the activities of the Grampian travel clinic was carried out over 1 year to obtain an overall perspective of the clinic workload and to determine how much of the workload was dependent on the oil industry.

METHODS: A specially designed data collection sheet was completed for each of the 669 consultations conducted at the Grampian travel clinic, Aberdeen, between February 1, 2002, and January 31, 2003.

RESULTS: Patients attending the clinic came in equal numbers from the city of Aberdeen and the Grampian region. Twenty-five percent were traveling for work purposes: 87.4% of this travel was oil related, and most patients were headed to Africa. The commonest vaccines given were for yellow fever, Japanese B encephalitis, and rabies, reflecting the specialist nature of the clinic. Most travelers did leave adequate time for immunization before travel. The public is still apprehensive about using mefloquine as malarial prophylaxis.

CONCLUSIONS: Most attendees were traveling on holiday, but a quarter of the consultations were for travel related to the oil industry. Almost 70% of attendees had already visited their general practitioner and were therefore attending the clinic for specialist advice and vaccines. There is a need for increased clinic capacity.