Tips from Other Journals

Previous | Next

New Guideline for Travel Medicine

Background: There have been significant advances in the field of travel medicine over the past 25 years. Travel medicine is pri-marily concerned with maintaining wellness in travelers by minimizing environmental risks and preventing infectious disease. This guideline, developed by the Infectious Dis-eases Society of America, focuses on the most common issues in travel medicine includ-ing appropriate immunization, traveler’s diarrhea, and the prevention of malaria. The full guideline is available at http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CID/journal/issues/v43n12/40908/40908.html.

Recommendations: A pretravel health risk assessment is vital to ensure a traveler’s well-being. This should include the traveler’s age, underlying health conditions, medica-tion use, immunization history, and trip details (e.g., planned activities, length of stay, lodging). Information about potential health hazards at specific destinations is available at http://www.cdc.gov/travel.

Immunization status of travelers should be reviewed, and routine immunizations should be updated as needed. Although hepatitis A is largely self-limited, fulminant hepatitis and death is more common in patients older than 40 years; immunization should be considered for travelers who have not had the disease. Yellow fever immuniza-tion is strongly recommended for persons traveling to equatorial South America and Africa. Vaccination centers offering yel-low fever immunization can be found at http://www2.ncid.cdc.gov/travel/yellowfever. Other immunizations (e.g., meningitis, rabies, Japanese encephalitis, typhoid, and rabies, Japanese encephalitis, typhoid, and tick-borne encephalitis) should be offered to persons at high risk based on the nature of travel. Table 1 gives an overview of immuni-zation recommendations for travelers.

Diarrhea is the most common travel ill-ness. All travelers should be counseled about dietary hygiene and precautions including drinking bottled or boiled water and avoid-ing undercooked and improperly prepared foods. Although antibiotic prophylaxis is not recommended for most travelers, physi-cians may consider providing a fluoroqui-nolone prescription for up to three days or azithromycin (Zithromax). This would allow for prompt self-treatment if a fever greater than 101.3° F (38.5° C) or bloody diarrhea develops. Afebrile persons with nonbloody stools can usually be self-treated with an antidiarrheal medication such as loperamide (Imodium).

Malaria is highly preventable, yet more than 1,300 cases are reported annually in travelers returning to the United States. Most malaria cases are caused by non-adherence with or inappropriate chemo-prophylaxis. Prevention should include wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants and sleeping in areas protected with netting that is treated with permethrin or another insecticide. Travelers should use an insect repellent containing at least 20 percent N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide.

Prophylaxis for malaria is recommended for those traveling to high-risk areas (Table 2). Although chloroquine Aralen) is effective for the prevention of malaria when traveling to Central America, the Dominican Repub-lic, and much of the Middle East, alternative medications should be used when traveling to areas where resistant Plasmodium strains are common. Physicians should consider malaria as the cause of fever in any patient who presents within one year of traveling to an endemic area, regardless of whether they received prophylaxis.

KENNETH T. MOON, MD

Source: Hill DR, et al. The practice of travel medicine: guidelines by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Clin Infect Dis December 15, 2006;43:1499-539.

This is a corrected version of the article that appeared in print.