Open AccessThe Concept of Travel Medicine and the Actual Situation of Travel-Related Illnesses
Author(s) -
Varol Tunalı,
Nevın Turgay
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
türkiye parazitoloji dergisi/türkiye parazitoloji dergisi
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.207
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 2146-3077
pISSN - 1300-6320
DOI - 10.5152/tpd.2017.5213
Subject(s) - travel medicine , air travel , dengue fever , chikungunya , medicine , infectious disease (medical specialty) , geography , disease , virology , aviation , engineering , psychiatry , aerospace engineering , pathology
Travel medicine defines all diseases and medical situations that are related to travel. Travel medicine comprises infectious diseases, traumas, altitude sickness, sun burns, embolisms, jet lag, and many more travel-related situations. With the increasing possibility and ease of travel, the number of people who have travelled internationally has exceeded 1.13 billion in 2014, and the revenues of international travel have exceeded 1.25 trillion dollars. With every passing day, international travels are shifting toward the developing countries and to more exotic regions of the world, and travelers tend to be more adventurous and daring, thereby increasing risky behaviors during travels. Traveling plays an important role in transmitting infections such as Zika virus infection, Ebola, avian flu, severe acute respiratory syndrome, Chikungunya, and dengue fever and is the principal reason for the epidemics of these types of infections on a global scale. With this background, we suggest that travel medicine is an important but "neglected" medical discipline as the discipline of Parasitology itself like most parasitic diseases.