[Common diseases after travel in tropical countries].
About 10% of the travellers are ill after return. The most common diseases diagnosed in returning travellers are more often of cosmopolitan than exotic origin. These diseases are mostly infections and involve the digestive and the respiratory tract, and the skin. Thus a history of travel should not systematically orients towards an exotic disease. Indeed these latter diseases are less commonly diagnosed even in the subgroup of febrile patients. Nonetheless some of these diseases can be fatal whereas other are associated with a risk of transmission in hospital units or in the community. Subsequently a history of travel also warrants taking into account exotic diseases in ill patients. The most common of these diseases are malaria, arthropod-born viral diseases, viral A and B hepatitis, typhoid fever, and intestinal tract infections. Their prevention relies on vaccinations, adequate chemoprophylaxis of malaria, compliance with the rules of personal and food hygiene and avoidance of arthropod exposure.
Caumes
Eric
E
Service des maladies infectieuses et tropicales, groupe hospitalier Pitié-Salpêtrière, université Pierre et Marie Curie, 75651 Paris 13. eric.caumes@psl.aphp.fr
D006801:Humans; D014195:Travel; D014329:Tropical Climate; D014330:Tropical Medicine