Travel Medicine
Travel medicine or Emporiatrics is an interdisciplinary field primarily focused on the health of the traveler. In Greek, “emperos” means traveler and “iatros” means “physician”. However, travel medicine also promotes ethical travel and protection of the environment and culture of the places visited. “Fly less to protect the environment” is not something which a traveler would expect to hear while visiting a pre-travel clinic for his/her pre-travel consultation.
Tourism is a driving force for economic growth, and provides 1 in 11 jobs worldwide. Target 8.9 of the sustainable development goal mentions, “By 2030, devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products”.1 Encouraging tourism is even a way to save endangered animal species like the Javan Rhinos and Tigers. The UNWTO data shows that in 2022 there were 960 million international travelers, almost close to the pre-COVID19 pandemic numbers. Considering the fact that an epidemic in a local area becomes a pandemic through international travel, is it any wonder that the World Health Organisation recommends that all individuals planning travel should seek expert advice?
A traveler may be faced with infectious as well as non-infectious risks during travel. Adventure and wilderness pose their own non-infectious risks. Vaccination is a good way to prevent infectious diseases associated with travel as booking a five star hotel cannot always protect a traveler. Ongoing epidemics and endemic infections like yellow fever in the Americas, or cholera outbreaks in the war zones put travelers to these areas at risk. Therefore special vaccines are indicated for certain travelers which are otherwise not routinely recommended. Tricky situations like not having enough time for the vaccine to generate immunity before a traveler reaches his/her destination, or a child less than 9 months old going to a place with ongoing measles outbreak will require consultation by a travel medicine expert.
Keeping up to date on a daily basis with the changing epidemiology and ongoing epidemics can be difficult. Websites like “TRAVAX” of the United Kingdom provide up to date information on disease epidemiology and indicated vaccines for travelers to a particular destination and can be useful tools in the Travel Health clinic.
As tourism and international travel are growing, so is the field of Travel Medicine.
What are your strategies for travelers attending your clinic? Please let us know in the comments below.
https://www.unwto.org/tourism-in-2030-agenda