The data of the Civil Aviation Authority show that we are more and more willing to travel. In 2015, Poles made over a million foreign trips, and in 2016 – half a million more. Together with the number of people leaving, the number of cases of diseases brought increases. What diseases do we bring from exotic holidays?
It concerns both typical tropical diseases and those that Poles fall ill with abroad as a result of neglecting the obligatory vaccinations in the country where they are staying. Examples of such diseases are, for example, polio, typhoid and measles.
According to the National Institute of Public Health – National Institute of Hygiene, in 2015, 12 cases of dengue were registered in Poland, and a year the number of such cases exceeded 40. 29 cases of malaria were also registered, and a year later – 38. This year, by mid-July, the disease was diagnosed in 43 patients.
NIPH-NIH experts say that in Poland we are dealing with a relatively high mortality from malaria, which is caused by delaying diagnosis, e.g. due to the fact that the present clinical picture of the disease differs from the previously known one (cyclically recurring fever).
Therefore, GPs should pay attention to whether people presenting to them with fever, diarrhea, rash or flu-like symptoms, such as joint pain, have recently traveled. Such symptoms may occur even more than two months after returning from an exotic vacation
There are clinics and hospital departments suitable for treating tropical diseases in Poland – including 378 infectious disease outpatient clinics and 98 tropical disease outpatient clinics, 46 infectious disease departments and 6 children’s infectious diseases departments. Laboratory tests are also performed to detect exotic pathogens and parasites.
The National Center of Tropical Medicine in Gdynia specializes in such diagnostics. The delay in diagnosis and treatment initiation may be mainly due to the fact that the patient does not inform the doctor about his trip.