Despite antibiotic treatment of travellers' diarrhoea pathogens are found in stools from half of travellers at return

Among visitors to the (sub)tropics, 20 –50% contract travellers' diarrhoea (TD) and 5–30% take antibiotics. While shortening the duration of illness, antimicrobials predispose to acquisition of multi-drug resistant bacteria. Therefore, liberal use is no longer advocated. Although antibiotics kill pathogens, no data support the view t hat they could prevent post-infectious sequelae. We investigated how antibiotic use for TD abroad impacts the pathogen findings at return.
Source: Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease - Category: Infectious Diseases Authors: Source Type: research