Douglas Chapman – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Chapman on 2015-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether all UK service personnel deployed to malarial areas since 2013 have been individually assessed for contraindications for mefloquine; and what the method of assessment was for those who were individually assessed.

Mark Lancaster

Since 2013, it has been Ministry of Defence policy that mefloquine should only be prescribed after an individual risk assessment. To verify that an individual assessment has been undertaken in every case since 2013 would require the examination of the medical records of all individuals who have deployed since 2013. This could only be achieved at disproportionate cost.

Templates exist to optimise consistency in the preparation of personnel requiring anti-malarials, including mefloquine. Defence Primary Healthcare has a malaria protocol to guide clinicians to use these templates. Work is currently in hand to develop it further, taking previous lessons into account, to ensure that all individuals are assessed in a consistent manner.