Therapeutic Area: Infectious diseases and international travel.
Format: This is a soft-cover book.
Audience and Purpose: This book is intended for practitioners who advise patients planning international travel. It is an essential reference for physicians and clinical pharmacists specializing in infectious diseases.
Content: The book is organized into 9 chapters, whose titles provide insight into the book's scope and map the entire sequence of foreign travel advising, from preplanning to screening on return home: Introduction, The Pre-Travel Consultation, Select Destinations and Travel Itineraries, The Post-Travel Consultation, Other Infectious Diseases Related to Travel, Conveyance and Transportation Issues, International Travel with Infants and Children, Advising Travelers with Specific Needs, and Health Considerations for Newly Arrived Immigrants and Refugees. Appendices describe general practice philosophy and immunization scheduling. There are 61 tables summarizing diagnostic criteria, treatment guidelines, essential pharmacology, drug interactions, and adverse effects of specific agents. There are 6 figures, 10 text boxes of clinical pearls, and 28 maps showing endemic areas and prevalence for selected diseases. Each section is suitably referenced to primary literature.
The contents are organized into color-coded sections according to disease, rather than by geographic area. For each disease, sections discuss infectious agents and vectors, modes of transmission, risks, clinical presentation, and treatment. Vaccine-preventable diseases (eg, malaria, yellow fever, typhoid, infectious hepatitides) each have an extensive section. There is a section on select destinations but, with the exceptions of China and India, these do not seem to be frequent destinations for American travelers (eg, Nepal, Kilimanjaro). Otherwise, the book is a treasury of information beyond simple immunization information. There are descriptions of injuries, travel hazards, and self-treatable problems that most practitioners might not foresee. For example, injuries from monkeys, snakes, insects, and bats are described, as are violence-related injury prevention, diving risks, altitude sickness (particularly after diving), and jet lag. These enhance the book's content, elevating it above the level of a simple infectious diseases text, and make for interesting reading apart from travel advice.
Usability: This tertiary reference is as up-to-date as printed matter can be and is well worth the modest price. Since treatment guidelines often change rapidly, however, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site should probably be used as a final check after gathering information from the book.
Highlights: The scope of this book is impressive. Although in some cases the depth is limited, there is authoritative and complete information on precautions that the traveler should take for nearly all foreseeable risks.
Limitations: Organization by disease makes it rather more difficult to determine what immunizations and precautions are needed for specific itineraries than would organization by destination; this is the major shortcoming of the book. Users should take care to update the book promptly as later editions emerge.
Summary: This book should be in the library of any physician or clinical pharmacist involved with international travelers. Users should take time to study the book's content and organization so that pertinent information for each traveler can be accessed quickly. At its low price, the book is interesting reading for those interested in obscure infectious diseases and trauma and for those with an interest in world health.
Reviewer: Roy C Parish PharmD BCPS, Professor of Clinical and Administrative Sciences and Scott Endowed Chair for Clinical Pharmacy Research, College of Pharmacy, The University of Louisiana at Monroe; Adjunct Professor of Medicine, School of Medicine, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Shreveport, LA.
Financial disclosure: None reported
