Illness in Returning Travellers

Abstract

With cheap airfares, international travel has become commonplace. In 2007, around 70 million trips abroad were made by UK residents compared to 30 million in 1987. Around 1 in 10 travellers seek medical attention for symptoms that they have developed abroad after visiting the developing world, either while still abroad or on their return to the UK. This article aims to provide the GP with a strategy to deal with such patients presenting to primary care.

Care of the International Traveller

“…This is required under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. InnovAiT has previously published a comprehensive article about ‘Illness in returning travellers’ (Jones and Simon, 2010); readers are advised to access this text to find out more.…”

“…This paper seeks to provide an overview of the approach to pre-travel assessment, using fictional case studies to provoke thought and encourage application of knowledge to particular topics. It does not provide a detailed discussion of travel health, or the management of illness in the returning traveller, as these topics have been comprehensively tackled in previous editions of InnovAiT (Jones and Simon, 2010; Meharli, 2010).…”