Tropical sprue after travel to Tanzania

Tropical sprue (TS) is a diagnosis to consider in travelers with prolonged diarrhea and a malabsorption syndrome after return from tropical countries, particularly India and Southeast Asia. TS is an unusual condition in tropical Africa. Textbooks of tropical medicine indicate a low endemicity in Nigeria and a limited number of cases in South Africa and Zimbabwe. A Medline search from 1979 to mid 1998 using "Tanzania and tropical sprue" as key words disclosed no hits. We report herein a case of TS in a European traveler, who lived in Tanzania for 8 months.