Health Protection
Posts about the work of the Health Protection directorate
We all want the best start for our children. Protecting babies and infants from illness and disease is crucial and a key priority for PHE. Immunisations are quick, safe and effective. In England we have added to the immunisation schedule …
A few years ago I took my three year old son on a steam train. At the start of the trip he was subdued, by the end he was covered in spots; ‘The Train Spotted Me’, he wailed. His nursery …
Whether you’re a health professional, a regular traveller to the Middle East, or you're planning to visit the region for Hajj and Umrah, you may have heard of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or "MERS". The risk of contracting the virus remains …
Whilst summer may still feel a way off to some, my attention is now firmly moving towards making sure we have everything in place to protect the health of those most at risk from high temperatures this summer. This is …
You may not know it but 2015 has been declared, by no less an august organisation than the United Nations, as the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies. I had the pleasure of attending the international launch in January …
This post was last checked and updated in August 2023. You may not have heard of it, but radon is a part of your life – wherever you live. Read five facts home owners should know about radon, including how it …
Neil Bentley, PHE's Head of Specialist Microbiology Technical Services, has recently travelled to Sierra Leone to help set up three new Ebola laboratories. The first opened in October and two others followed in early December last year, based across the …
For International Women’s Day, we’re blogging in support of the Department for Work and Pensions Not Just for Boys campaign. The campaign is all about choice - supporting and inspiring women to make decisions that are right for them …
As part of our remit for protecting public health in England, we run a ‘Tick Recording Scheme’ (TRS) which receives ticks found by members of the public, GPs, vets and those working with wildlife. This enables us to map tick …
Throughout the Ebola outbreak there have been UK media headlines reporting ‘suspected’ cases. PHE expert Dr. Emma Aarons looks at the meaning of a ‘suspected case’, and why it’s important to view these in the wider context of our testing …