Rabies Vaccine in Leicester

Family trips deserve family protection

Medicine Clinic is opening Syston Pharmacy, 1290 Melton Road, Syston LE7 2HD. Its travel clinic — including the rabies pre-exposure course — is not yet taking appointments.

GPhC-registered pharmacy
Adults and children vaccinated
Whole-family appointments
Pharmacist-led assessments

Service: Travel clinic
Location: Leicester
Clinic: Syston Pharmacy
Group: Medicine Clinic
Address: 1290 Melton Road, Syston, LE7 2HD
Distance: about 6 miles
Drive time: around 20 minutes by car via the A607, traffic dependent
Referral: No GP referral needed

Visiting family abroad

Rabies cover for long family visits overseas

You can get the rabies vaccine in Leicester at Syston Pharmacy, 1290 Melton Road, Syston, Leicestershire LE7 2HD. The pre-exposure course is three doses over 21 to 28 days, adults and children can be vaccinated, and family appointments are booked online.

For Leicester families, the trips that most often justify rabies vaccination are the long ones home: several weeks in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or East Africa, staying with relatives rather than in resorts. Time in villages and smaller towns, children playing outside, and everyday proximity to street dogs add up to more exposure than a typical package holiday — while distance from a major hospital makes any bite harder to deal with.

Rabies spreads in the saliva of infected animals, usually dogs, through bites, scratches or licks to broken skin. Once symptoms appear it is almost always fatal. Children carry the highest risk: they are bitten more often, bitten nearer the head and neck, and may not tell an adult a scratch happened at all.

The pharmacist at Melton Road assesses each traveller individually — adults and children — and books the whole family's three-dose schedules together where vaccination is recommended. Post-bite advice is part of every consultation, because vaccinated travellers still need prompt treatment after any exposure. Prices are confirmed during your consultation.

What families get at Melton Road

The rabies service is built around households travelling together.

Per-person risk assessment
Each family member is assessed individually — a toddler staying in a village and an adult on a two-week city visit are different decisions.
Children's rabies vaccination
The pre-exposure course can be given to children, with suitability confirmed by the pharmacist at the assessment.
Whole-family scheduling
All three doses for every traveller are arranged in shared or consecutive slots to keep visits manageable.
Bite-response teaching
Practical coaching for parents and children: wash for several minutes with soap and water, tell an adult, seek care the same day.
Wider VFR vaccine review
Typhoid, hepatitis A and hepatitis B are checked in the same consultation — they are frequently recommended for the same trips.
Dated records for every traveller
Each person leaves with their own written vaccination record to carry during the trip.

How a family course runs

Five steps from booking to departure.

1
Register your family's interest
Leave your details so Syston Pharmacy can contact your household once rabies pre-exposure appointments open — start early, since the course takes 21 to 28 days.
2
Individual assessments
The pharmacist reviews each traveller's age, health, trip length and where in-country you will stay.
3
First doses together
Everyone recommended for vaccination has dose one at the same visit where possible.
4
Day 7 and day 21–28 visits
Two follow-up visits complete every course — each takes only a few minutes per person.
5
Pre-departure wrap-up
Records issued, bite plan rehearsed, and any remaining vaccines or antimalarial questions resolved before you fly.

Rabies and travel to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh

Leicester's strongest travel corridors run to South Asia, and South Asia carries the world's heaviest rabies burden — India alone accounts for a large share of global rabies deaths, with free-roaming dogs the main source. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal all report significant dog rabies. East African destinations that feature in Leicester's travel — Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania — carry comparable risk.

Coming soon: Medicine Clinic is opening a new pharmacy at 1290 Melton Road, Syston, Leicestershire LE7 2HD. The travel clinic there is not yet taking appointments — no opening date has been confirmed, so please register your interest or check current availability on the main Medicine Clinic travel-clinic page below rather than travelling to Syston Pharmacy expecting a same-day vaccination.

The trips themselves amplify it. A family visit is not a fortnight behind a resort wall: it is weeks living as locals live, often in smaller towns and villages where dogs move freely around streets, courtyards and fields, and where the nearest facility stocking full post-exposure treatment may be hours away. The same familiarity that makes these trips feel safe is what lowers the guard.

Children and rabies risk

Ask any travel health professional which group worries them most for rabies and the answer is children on long stays. The reasons are specific:

Children approach and play with animals adults would avoid.
Their height means bites land more often on the head, face and hands — sites where the virus reaches nerves faster.
They frequently fail to report scratches, especially if they were doing something they were told not to.
Village play is outdoors, unsupervised for stretches, and shared with free-roaming dogs.

Pre-exposure vaccination does not license carelessness, but it converts a hidden scratch from a potential catastrophe into something two vaccine doses can secure — and it removes the need for rabies immunoglobulin, which is scarce in exactly the places these trips go.

Vaccination schedules for the whole family

Adults and children follow the same UK pre-exposure pattern:

Visit	Timing	Who attends
Visit 1	Day 0	Whole family: individual assessments, first doses where recommended
Visit 2	Day 7	Everyone having the course — a few minutes per person
Visit 3	Day 21–28	Final doses and records for each traveller

Starting five to six weeks before departure keeps the schedule relaxed and leaves room for a missed week. The course can be completed in 21 days when time is short. Syston Pharmacy books the whole household's visits together, and other travel vaccines — typhoid and hepatitis A are the usual companions for these trips, with hepatitis B often advised for children — can be folded into the same three visits.

If a bite happens during a family visit

The response is the same for every family member, vaccinated or not: wash the wound with soap and running water for several minutes, apply antiseptic, and get medical care the same day. Do not rely on watching the dog, and do not let embarrassment or trip logistics delay treatment — rabies gives no second chances once symptoms start.

For a vaccinated traveller, treatment is two further vaccine doses, available in most sizeable towns. For an unvaccinated traveller, significant exposures usually also require rabies immunoglobulin around the wound. In rural South Asia that often means travelling to a major city, and supplies are not guaranteed when you arrive. Families have lost days of a precious visit — or flown home early — to that search. This gap between the two pathways is the practical case for vaccinating before you leave Leicester.

Syston Pharmacy

Syston Pharmacy, 1290 Melton Road, Syston, Leicestershire LE7 2HD, is a new Medicine Clinic branch about 6 miles north-east of Leicester city centre, just off the A607. On-street parking is usually available along Melton Road, and Syston railway station is a short walk away. The travel clinic here has not opened yet, so the rabies course described above is not currently available at this address — register your interest or check current availability on the main Medicine Clinic travel-clinic page. The pharmacist runs travel consultations through the week, sees adults and children, and speaks to hundreds of VFR travellers each year — the risk assessment is tuned to exactly these itineraries, not to generic beach holidays.

Prices are confirmed during your consultation, per person, after the assessment and before any vaccination. Where a family member does not need the course — a short city-only visit, for example — the pharmacist will say so plainly.

What happens at the appointment, step by step

The pharmacist takes a full travel and family history, including who in the household is travelling and for how long.
Each family member is individually assessed; rabies vaccination is not a blanket family decision, since a short city stay for one relative may not carry the same risk as weeks in a village for another.
Where recommended, the first dose is given on the day, and the second and third appointments are booked into the diary at day 7 and day 21 to 28 before you leave.
Post-bite advice is given to everyone in the family, vaccinated or not, since the immediate response to any scratch or bite is the same regardless of vaccination status.

When rabies vaccination is not needed

A short city-based visit with no village stays, no contact with street animals, and easy access to a major hospital carries much lower risk, and the pharmacist will say so rather than recommending the course by default. The decision rests on the actual itinerary and activities, not simply on the destination country.

Preparing for your family's appointment

Bring everyone's passports or travel dates, a note of any previous vaccine reactions in the family, and a rough sense of where you'll be staying — city hotel, family home, or rural village — since this shapes the risk assessment for each person.

Aftercare

A sore arm, mild headache or tiredness for a day or so are the most commonly reported effects in both adults and children. The vaccine contains no live virus. Keep the written record of each family member's doses safe, since you'll need to show it to any doctor treating a bite abroad, and it avoids unnecessary repeat courses on future trips.

Rabies vaccination in Syston, Leicester

Coming soon: Medicine Clinic is opening a new pharmacy at 1290 Melton Road, Syston, Leicestershire LE7 2HD. The travel clinic there is not yet taking appointments — no opening date has been confirmed, so please register your interest or check current availability on the main Medicine Clinic travel-clinic page below rather than travelling to Syston Pharmacy expecting a same-day vaccination. A large share of the travel we see at Melton Road is families visiting relatives in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and East Africa — trips that run three to eight weeks, mix cities with ancestral villages, and involve children playing outdoors where street dogs are part of daily life. Visiting friends and relatives is consistently associated with lower pre-travel vaccination uptake, partly because a familiar destination does not feel risky. For rabies specifically, that instinct is misleading: India accounts for a large share of the world's rabies deaths, and children are the most exposed group.

Syston Pharmacy is at 1290 Melton Road in Syston, Leicestershire, just off the A607 about 6 miles north-east of Leicester city centre. Syston railway station, on the Leicester–Loughborough line, is a short walk away, and on-street parking is available along Melton Road. From Leicester the most direct route is the A607 via Thurmaston, or the A46/A6030 ring road then the A607 — allow around 20 minutes outside peak times.

Medicine Clinic — Syston Pharmacy1290 Melton Road, Syston, Leicestershire, LE7 2HDGPhC registered pharmacy — premises 9012735

Questions Leicester families ask

Honest answers about rabies, children and long visits to South Asia and Africa.

Where can I get the rabies vaccine in Leicester?

A new Medicine Clinic pharmacy is opening at 1290 Melton Road, Syston, Leicestershire LE7 2HD, serving Leicester. Its travel clinic has not started taking appointments yet, so the rabies pre-exposure course is not currently available there. Register your interest or check current availability on the main Medicine Clinic travel-clinic page.

We visit India every year — do we really need rabies vaccination?

Repeated long stays strengthen the case rather than weaken it. India has a significant rabies burden, and familiarity with a place does not reduce exposure to street dogs. One completed course provides long-lasting protection across many future visits, which often makes it better value for regular VFR travellers than for one-off tourists.

Why are children a special concern for rabies?

Children are bitten more often than adults, their bites are more often to the head, face and hands, and they may hide or forget a scratch. During village stays they play outdoors close to free-roaming dogs. That combination is why UK guidance gives children particular weight in rabies risk assessments for long trips.

Can my child have the rabies vaccine, and at what age?

The pre-exposure course can be given to children, including young children. Suitability for each child is confirmed by the pharmacist at the assessment, taking into account age, health and the trip itself. Children's doses follow the same day 0, 7 and 21 to 28 pattern as adults.

What should my child do if a dog scratches them in the village?

Teach them two things: tell an adult straight away, and wash. The wound should be washed with soap and running water for several minutes, antiseptic applied, and the child taken for medical care the same day — even if vaccinated, and even if the scratch seems trivial. Do not wait to watch the dog.

Does being vaccinated mean we can skip treatment after a bite?

No. Vaccinated travellers still need two further vaccine doses after a possible exposure, starting as soon as possible. What vaccination removes is the need for rabies immunoglobulin — scarce in much of South Asia and Africa — and the desperate logistics of finding it mid-trip.

We fly in three weeks — can the whole family still be covered?

Possibly. The course can be completed in 21 days, so three weeks is workable if you start immediately and no dose slips. Book the family assessment now; the pharmacist will map exact dates against your departure and be honest about anyone for whom the schedule no longer fits.

Is the rabies vaccine halal or acceptable during religious observance?

If vaccine ingredients or timing around fasting are a concern, raise it at the consultation. The pharmacist can discuss what the vaccine contains, how it is made and options for appointment timing, so families can make an informed decision that fits their observance. Written ingredient information is available on request.

What does the family course cost?

Prices are confirmed during your consultation at Syston Pharmacy. You will be given the cost per person for the complete three-dose course after the assessments and before any vaccination, so the family can decide together with full information.

What other vaccines do long family trips to South Asia usually need?

Typhoid and hepatitis A are commonly recommended for long stays with family, and hepatitis B is often advised for children and for trips involving possible medical or dental care. The pharmacist reviews all of this in the same consultation, so one set of visits can cover the household's whole schedule.

Is the Syston travel clinic open yet?

Not yet. Medicine Clinic is opening a new pharmacy at 1290 Melton Road, Syston, Leicestershire LE7 2HD, and the travel clinic there has not started taking appointments. No opening date has been confirmed. Register your interest or check current availability on the main Medicine Clinic travel-clinic page in the meantime.

Clinically reviewed

Mitesh Patel MPharm — GPhC 2057557

Mitesh Patel is the superintendent pharmacist for Medicine Clinic and is registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC 2057557). He oversees clinical governance, patient group directions and vaccine cold-chain across the group's pharmacies.

Last reviewed 10 Aug 2026

Sources

Rabies vaccine — NHS
Rabies factsheet — TravelHealthPro (NaTHNaC)
Rabies fact sheet — WHO
Rabies: the green book, chapter 27 — GOV.UK
Country-specific travel health advice — TravelHealthPro (NaTHNaC)

Nearby

See every location we cover

Opening in Syston

Register interest for a family course

Syston Pharmacy's travel clinic is opening but not yet taking appointments. Register your family's interest in the rabies pre-exposure course, or check current availability on the main Medicine Clinic travel-clinic page.

GPhC-registered pharmacy
Three doses booked together
Syston, Leicestershire, north-east of Leicester

Rabies Vaccine in Leicester

Rabies cover for long family visits overseas

What families get at Melton Road

Per-person risk assessment

Children's rabies vaccination

Whole-family scheduling

Bite-response teaching

Wider VFR vaccine review

Dated records for every traveller

How a family course runs

Register your family's interest

Individual assessments

First doses together

Day 7 and day 21–28 visits

Pre-departure wrap-up