• J Travel Med · Sep 2017

    Morbidity among Israeli paediatric travellers.

    • Shira Rabinowicz and Eli Schwartz.
    • Department of Pediatrics A, Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital, Sheba Medical Center, Ramat Gan, Tel Hashomer 5262000, Israel.
    • J Travel Med. 2017 Sep 1; 24 (6).

    BackgroundInternational travel, particularly to developing countries, is becoming increasingly common among the Israeli population, including an increase in the number of travelling children. Since children are a distinct travellers' population, data about their post-travel morbidity are needed.MethodsA retrospective study which examined all children (0-19 years old) who presented to our centre after international travel from 1999 to 2015.ResultsAbout 314 children were seen. The mean age was 10 years (SD ± 5.8). Most of the patients (80.6%) were tourists, and the rest were expatriates. The main destinations visited were South-Asia (46.5%), Sub-Saharan Africa (33.4%), Latin-America (7%) and Europe (6.4%). Overall, the most common diagnoses were gastrointestinal (GI) (mainly chronic) disorders (30.6%), followed by febrile diseases (26.4%), among which 18.1% of patients were diagnosed with dengue fever and 12% with malaria. Dermatologic conditions accounted for 25.2%. Additional diagnoses were schistosomiasis (6.4%) and neuropsychiatric symptoms (2.2%). A substantial part, 10.8%, had eosinophilia, either symptomatic or asymptomatic. Travellers to Asia, compared to travellers to Africa, presented more commonly with GI illness (OR 2.02, 95% confidence interval 1.13-3.61), and dermatologic conditions (OR 1.94, 95% confidence interval 1.05-3.61). Morbidity was associated with a variety of transmission modes, such as food-borne illnesses (30.9%), bite and sting wounds (10.2%), mosquito-borne infections (8%), freshwater contact (6.7%) and tick-borne infections (2.2%).ConclusionThe main conditions seen in paediatric returning travellers were GI, febrile and dermatologic illnesses, some may be rare in their country of origin. Targeting care for the suspected pathogens based on updated knowledge of epidemiology and thorough travel history is essential.© International Society of Travel Medicine, 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com

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