Principles and Practice of Travel Medicine - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471490792 ISBN 13: 9780471490791

Publisher: Wiley–Blackwell, 2001

Synopsis

Disease knows no frontiers and almost any place in the world can be reached within 24--36 hours, less time than the incubation period of most infectious diseases. As one of todaya s healthcare professionals you are expected to prevent, identify and treat all infectious diseases irrespective of geographical and climatic limitations. To do this you must be well versed in the development of new and improved vaccines and the rapid advances in the development of the latest drugs and treatments. Principles and Practice of Travel Medicine provides up to the minute information on the prevention and treatment of travel--related ill health, as well as the effects travel can have on people. Written in a distinctive style, Zuckerman offers you not only the latest information, but also an interesting, thought provoking read. Your essential one--stop resource for travel medicine, includes: aeo Epidemiology and surveillance of infectious diseases aeo Malaria and other parasitic diseases aeo Aviation medicine and psychology aeo Altitude medicine aeo Illness in returning travellers aeo Vaccine preventable diseases aeo Children and travel

About this title

Review

"...I would highly recommend this book...the content is invaluable..." -- Practice Nurse, 27 September 2002

"...This is a good book. It is comprehensive, covers the major problems fully, while providing at least a short entry on the less common and more exotic..." -- Tropical Doctor

"...easy to read and highly informative...will be invaluable and will replace my usual reference sources..." -- Family Practice, Vol.19, No.4, 2002

"The case histories throughout help to highlight the subjects. This textbook will be a welcome addition to those involved in training and those advising travellers and a valuable resource for study and reference."
-- Royal College of Nursing Travel Medicine Forum Newsletter, January 2002

"To put together such a valuable and useful reference as this is a monumental task, and the book deserves a place on the shelves of all travel clinics." -- Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

From the Author

Preface

The specialty of travel medicine has evolved rapidly as a result of the massive increase in international travel facilitated by the introduction of economical and fast air transport across the world, the construction of transcontinental road and rail connections, giant ship cruisers, travel to and exploration of regions and areas that were previously inaccessible or remote, and the explosive increase in tourism. The World Tourism Organisation, for example, has predicted that international travel, currently in excess of 500 million people each year, will increase by 80% between 1995 and 2010. This also means exposure of travellers to genes, bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites and other health hazards in the new environment, and the transfer of genes and microorganisms across continents to the host population.

Travel medicine extends well beyond diseases of warm climate and the exigencies of travel and tropical life. It includes exposure to new environments and new cultures, and new hazards ranging from high-altitude and deep-sea environments to medical problems of cosmic radiation and space travel; emerging and re-emerging infections; safe food, safe water, safe clothing; natural and accidental disasters; and issues such as jet lag, fear of flying, air rage and tourist risk of violence. Extensive knowledge of current and new vaccines and of prophylactic and therapeutic drugs is essential. The re-emergence of infections such as diphtheria and syphilis in parts of eastern Europe, the HIV pandemic, increasing numbers of cases of legionella infection in travellers, the epidemiology of drug-resistant malaria, extensive outbreaks of dengue fever and antigenic shifts of influenza A are examples of the imperative need for rapid access to accurate information on an internationally recognise! d epidemiological database.

Travellers with special needs must be evaluated with care and advised accordingly. They include the diabetic traveller, the immunocompromised, those with cardiovascular, renal, neurological, gastrointestinal, malignant and other disorders, psychological and psychiatric illnesses, pregnant women, children and the elderly.

Knowledge of all these aspects of travel health and medicine are, therefore, an essential requirement for the many health care professionals providing advice to and clinical care of the traveller. This volume of Principles and Practice of Travel Medicine is addressed to practising physicians and nurses in primary care, occupational health and hospital settings, and to public health physicians, pharmacists and administrators, and, as a source textbook, to undergraduate and postgraduate students. A welcome recent development has been the implementation of teaching of the discipline of travel health and medicine in the form of postgraduate diploma and degree courses as well as study days. Teaching of the subject in the undergraduate curriculum is a feature in medical schools, and it has been introduced successfully at the Royal Free and University College Medical School, including the provision of a special study module. We hope that this book will serve the students well.

I am grateful to my many friends and colleagues who have contributed so willingly and enthusiastically to this book, through which we hope to stimulate health care professionals to consider issues in travel medicine as part of their clinical practice. I also hope that this text may enhance the profile of travel medicine and contribute to its development as a distinct specialty, which may subsequently be recognised as a component of training in infectious disease and tropical medicine as well as part of the undergraduate curriculum.

I would also like to express my gratitude to the editorial and production staff of John Wiley & Sons, in particular Charlotte Brabants and Suzanne Kriston, for their patience and unwavering support.

Finally, I am particularly indebted to my parents for their continued support and encouragement and without whom the inspiration for and concept of this book would never been realised.

Jane N. Zuckerman London

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley–Blackwell
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0471490792
• ISBN 13: 9780471490791
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 516
• Editor: Zuckerman Jane N.