Lyme disease - Threats to international travellers posed by tick-borne diseases

georgia · medicine forum Guru Joined: 06 May 2005 Posts: 505

Threats to international travellers posed by tick-borne diseases

Mogens Jenseniusa, , , Philippe Parolab, c and Didier Raoultb

aDepartment of Internal Medicine, Aker University Hospital, Oslo,
Norway
bUnité des Rickettsies, CNRS UMR 6020, Faculté de Médecine,
Université de la
Méditerranée, Marseille, France
cLaboratoire de Parasitologie et Mycologie, Génétique et Immunologie
des
Maladies Parasitaires, INSERM U399, Faculté de Médecine, Université
de la
Méditerranée, Marseille, France

Available online 20 December 2004.

Summary
To date, 14 tick-borne diseases have been reported in international
travellers, the majority of cases being Lyme borreliosis caused by
Borrelia burgdorferi
sensu lato in North America and Eurasia, African tick bite fever caused
by
Rickettsia africae in sub-Saharan Africa and eastern Caribbean, and
Central
European encephalitis caused by tick-borne encephalitis virus in
Europe. The
clinical presentation is frequently non-specific, and tick-borne
diseases should
always, in the absence of other likely diagnoses, be suspected in
travellers
with flu-like symptoms following a recent visit to tick-infested areas.
Feasible
microbiological diagnostic tests are widely unavailable, at least
outside
areas of endemicity where many infected travellers present. Empiric
treatment with
doxycycline should be considered in suspected cases of tick-borne
bacterial
diseases. Since ecotourism and adventure travel are increasingly
popular
worldwide, the incidence of travel-associated tick-borne diseases is
likely to
increase in the future.

Keywords: Ticks; Tick-borne diseases; Rickettsioses; Borreliosis;
Tick-borne
encephalitis

Corresponding author. Now at: US Department of Interior, National Park
Service Risk Management Division, 1201 Eye Street NW, Washington, D.C.
20005, USA.
Tel.: +47 22 89 40 00; fax: +47 22 89 40 08.

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