![]() ![]() Skin diseases are common in travelers returning from the tropics. ![]() Bites from several animal species, including snakes, scorpions, and jellyfish, cause much morbidity and mortality from envenomation and secondary infections. 3, 9 Other previously rare, but presently emerging, diseases from particular geographic areas include leptospirosis, trypanosomiasis, giardiasis, and viral hemorrhagic fever. The last decade of the twentieth century was marked by a resurgence in tropical diseases being encountered in countries outside the tropics, such as the United States, including Chagas disease, a chronic, systemic, parasitic infection caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, and vector-borne viral encephalitides. 9, 10 Climate change and global warming (with a resulting increase in average and nadir temperatures) may be causing tropical diseases and vectors to spread to higher altitudes in mountainous regions, and to higher latitudes that were previously spared, such as the southern United States and the Mediterranean area. Increasing migration, international air travel, tourism, and work visits to tropical regions have contributed to an increased incidence of such diseases being seen in the United States, United Kingdom, and Europe. Tropical diseases are not restricted to the tropics. Tropical diseases in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States The Global Surveillance Network of the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) established a worldwide communications and data collection network of travel/tropical medicine clinics in 1995, and their valuable Web site gives regularly updated information on geographic and temporal trends in disease-associated morbidity among travelers, immigrants, and refugees. Respiratory infectious diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (caused by coronavirus) and the avian influenza 8 are frequently causes of major concern. 6, 7 The identification and diagnosis of acute and chronic bacterial (including tuberculosis), viral, and fungal respiratory infections remain an important challenge in medical inpatient and outpatient practice in Europe, the United States, and developing countries. RTIs remain major causes of morbidity and mortality in adults and children worldwide, causing millions of deaths each year. 1, 2, 3, 4 Respiratory tract infections (RTIs) are caused by a variety of bacterial, viral, and fungal pathogens. These diseases share population targets, ecological niches, and wide geographic distribution. In addition to these, leishmaniasis, onchocerciasis, filariasis, Chagas disease, African trypanosomiasis, rickettsioses, enteric fever, helminthiases, viral hemorrhagic fevers, and diarrheal diseases have extremely high public health impacts, and cause significant morbidity and mortality in adults and children. 1, 2, 3, 4 Schistosomiasis is the second most important parasitic disease after malaria, with 200 million people infected and 779 million at risk in more than 70 countries. 5 Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and malaria alone are currently responsible for an estimated 6 million deaths annually. Although, in the past decade, lifestyle issues and changes in diet have led to an increase in the number of noncommunicable disease such as hypertension, diabetes, chronic obstructive airways disease, myocardial infarction, and cerebrovascular accidents in resource-poor tropical countries, tropical infectious diseases remain one of the major causes of preventable morbidity and mortality. 4 This wide array of diseases is compounded and made worse by the common issues of poverty, poor living conditions, malnutrition, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), and poor health systems (consequential on poverty, mismanagement, and corruption) that afflict a large proportion of developing countries across the tropics. 1, 2, 3Īpproximately 15 million people die each year because of tropical infectious and parasitic diseases, most living in developing countries. In tropical countries, apart from noncommunicable diseases, a severe burden of disease is caused by an array of different microorganisms, parasites, land and sea animals, and arthropods. This term covers all communicable and noncommunicable diseases, genetic disorders, and disease caused by nutritional deficiencies or environmental conditions (such as heat, humidity, and altitude) that are encountered in areas that lie between, and alongside, the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn belts. The term tropical diseases encompasses all diseases that occur principally in the tropics. This article gives an overview of the definition, geographical distribution, transmission and practical classification of tropical infectious diseases. ![]()
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