Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what advice they have received from Public Health England on Lariam (mefloquine), in particular in relation to members of the armed forces serving in Afghanistan.

Lariam (mefloquine), is an extremely effective antimalarial and is one of a number of antimalarials for travellers currently recommended by the Advisory Committee on Malaria Prevention (ACMP), an expert advisory committee of Public Health England (PHE) established in 1998 to formulate evidence-based guidelines on malaria prevention in the United Kingdom.

The use of mefloquine, for travellers, including military personnel, to high risk areas should be based on an individual risk assessment that takes into consideration the destination of travel, planned activities while travelling and the individual’s current health and medical history.

The ACMP regularly reviews data on safety and efficacy of all antimalarials. Whenever new evidence about antimalarials appears the ACMP considers this as part of its continuous process of developing advice.

The ACMP will be meeting in summer 2015 to finalise the 2015 revision of the ACMP guidelines. This meeting will review current evidence on the use of mefloquine, including data provided by Roche, and recommendations made by other countries including the United States with regard to the use of mefloquine for malaria prevention.