Health Care ofWorkers on Official Trips to Risk Areas Abroad – 27-years Experience

Overview

The author presents the history of the Centre for Travel Medicine at the Clinic of Occupational Diseases of the Faculty HospitalHradec Králové in 1975-2001. During this period they made 87 501 examinations of subjects travelling abroad. From thenationwide notified number of 1089 occupational tropical diseases their centre notified 284 infectious and parasitic occupationaldiseases, i.e. 26% of the total number in the Czech during that period. Consistent with the nationwide statistics most frequentlymalaria was reported: in the whole CR 481 cases, in the mentioned centre 144 which is almost 30%. One of these cases in Nigeriawas fatal when anti-malaria prophylaxis with Lariam failed. The second most frequent diseases in the CR was viral hepatitis,almost all cases were type A, a total of 146, in the Centre of Travel Medicine in Hradec Králové only 28 cases which is 11%. Thethird place was held in the CR by 164 amoebiasis incl. 81 reported by the Centre in Hradec Králové i.e. 49%. The highest numberof notified tropical diseases was in 1977, 1981, 1984 and 1995 which correlates with nationwide figures. The author presents alsoexperience with clinical and laboratory manifestations of different groups of tropical diseases and treatment, incl. Two publishedcases of beri-beri notified as other occupational damage from Peru and Nigeria. She also draws attention to some problems ofimmunization before trips abroad.

Key words:
Centre of Travel Medicine, occupational tropical diseases, malaria, amoebiasis, immunization