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Travel-related illness counseling urged in pediatric populations
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Clinicians who care for children who travel to typhoid-endemic areas are being urged in a recently published paper to discuss typhoid and other travel-related infections and arrange for necessary vaccinations before the child travels.
Caroline Quach, MD, MSc, of The Montreal Children’s Hospital, and colleagues included data on 39 patients aged younger than 18 years who presented to their hospital with confirmed typhoid fever between 1991 and 2011.
The researchers said about 80% of the children with typhoid had gone outside the country to visit relatives or friends, and four of the patients were newly arrived immigrants.
Quach and colleagues noted some similar features among those children with typhoid; notably, they had not been vaccinated. Also, “all cases presented with high fever (mean temperature 40.4°C) that lasted for a mean of 15.8 days. Common accompanying symptoms included anorexia, abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea.”
The researchers noted some ampicillin and ciprofloxacin resistance that increased over time, but no mortality in the study population.
The researchers said pediatricians should educate patients and parents on the risk for typhoid fever and other travel-related infections (eg, malaria), especially children whose parents are from endemic areas. In addition, there are two approved vaccines that make this disease potentially preventable for travelers.
“Parents who grew up in malaria or typhoid endemic countries often do not consider these diseases as preventable. Moreover, a trip back home to visit friends and relatives will often not be mentioned and will not prompt a visit to a travel clinic,” Quach told Infectious Diseases in Children. “It is therefore important that primary care physicians include travel-related preventable diseases, such as malaria and typhoid, in their routine preventive counseling to increase parents’ awareness both for themselves and their children.”
Caroline Quach, MD, MSc, can be reached at The Montreal Children’s Hospital, C1242-2300 Tupper St., Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3H 1P3; email: caroline.quach@mcgill.ca.
Disclosure: Quach reports having a grant pending from GlaxoSmithKline to study rotavirus.
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