I am flying in four days. Is there any point?

Yes. The response builds over roughly two weeks, so a dose four days out gives you partial cover during the trip and, more importantly, puts you on the course. Come in.

I think I had this as a child. Can you check?

Hepatitis A has never been on the routine UK childhood schedule, so it is unlikely unless it was given for travel or a liver condition. A blood test for immunity is possible but rarely worth the delay - an extra dose does no harm.

Is it needed for an all-inclusive hotel?

A hotel kitchen is staffed by people living locally, and the virus spreads through food handling. Resort stays are lower risk than street food, not no risk, and hepatitis A is the vaccine we would least readily skip.

Hepatitis A vaccination in Kent

The single most commonly given travel vaccine in the UK: one dose covers your trip, and a second within a year takes you to around twenty-five years.

Per dose: £60
Doses: 2
Full course: £120

Call your nearest clinic See prices

Ages: from 1 year
Protects for: around 25 years after the second dose
Come in: two weeks is ideal, but a dose the week you fly is still worth having

Assessed individually

Who tends to need hepatitis A

Nearly all travel outside Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand
Anywhere sanitation cannot be relied on - which includes resorts in otherwise high-risk countries
Visiting friends and relatives, statistically the highest-risk group of all UK travellers
Longer or repeated trips, where the lifetime course becomes obviously worth it
Anyone with a long-term liver condition, for whom the illness hits harder

An illness that lasts longer than the holiday

Hepatitis A is a virus that inflames the liver. It arrives the same way typhoid does - contaminated food or water, or hands that have not been washed - and then takes two to six weeks to show itself, which is why people often fall ill after they get home and never connect it to the trip.

It does not become a long-term infection, and almost everyone recovers fully. What it does do is flatten you: jaundice, exhaustion, nausea and a complete loss of appetite, commonly for four to six weeks and sometimes for months. Adults get it considerably worse than children, and it gets worse again with age.

Why we push the second dose

One dose does the job for the trip in front of you. It is the second, given six to twelve months later, that converts a holiday precaution into cover lasting roughly twenty-five years - and at that point you are done, for most travel, for most of your adult life.

People put the second dose off because the trip is over and the urgency has gone. It is worth a note in your calendar: the gap can stretch well beyond twelve months and still work, so if you are reading this years late, come in anyway rather than starting again.

Doing it in one visit with hepatitis B

A combined hepatitis A and B vaccine exists and we stock it. It is the sensible route if you need both - fewer injections, one course to remember - and the price per dose is published alongside the single vaccines so you can see the comparison rather than take our word for it.

If you only need hepatitis A, the single vaccine is the cheaper and shorter course. We will say so.

Plan ahead

The course and its timing

First dose: Protects for about a year. Ideally 2 weeks before departure.
Second dose: 6 to 12 months after the first. Extends cover to roughly 25 years.

If more than 12 months have passed since your first dose, the second still completes the course. You do not start again.
Children follow the same two-dose pattern from their first birthday, at a paediatric dose.

What to expect

Common side effects

Tenderness or a small lump at the injection site, settling within a few days
Tiredness or headache for a day
Appetite off briefly in some children

Side effects are usually mild and settle within a day or two. A reaction that worries you, or anything that is getting worse rather than better, is worth a call to the clinic that vaccinated you — or to 111 out of hours.

Common questions

Hepatitis A questions

I am flying in four days. Is there any point?
Yes. The response builds over roughly two weeks, so a dose four days out gives you partial cover during the trip and, more importantly, puts you on the course. Come in.
I think I had this as a child. Can you check?
Hepatitis A has never been on the routine UK childhood schedule, so it is unlikely unless it was given for travel or a liver condition. A blood test for immunity is possible but rarely worth the delay - an extra dose does no harm.
Is it needed for an all-inclusive hotel?
A hotel kitchen is staffed by people living locally, and the virus spreads through food handling. Resort stays are lower risk than street food, not no risk, and hepatitis A is the vaccine we would least readily skip.

Hepatitis B
A three-dose course that can be compressed into three weeks when you are travelling sooner than that, and the vaccine that matters most for long stays and medical work.
Full course £180
Hepatitis A and B combined
Both hepatitis vaccines in one injection: three visits instead of five, and the obvious choice if your trip calls for each of them.
Full course £195
Typhoid
One injection, around three years of cover, and it is the vaccine most often discussed for South Asia, parts of Africa and South America.
Full course £50