Travellers' diarrhoea

Travellers' diarrhoea each year affects six million persons. At highest risk are those originating in an industrialized country for a visit in the Third World; their incidence of diarrhoea is 20-56% for the first 14 days of the stay abroad. Younger travellers, those who care less, and those with a lack of nonspecific gastrointestinal immune factors are more susceptible. The ailment mostly takes a mild and short course. Travellers' diarrhoea is usually due to faecally contaminated food and beverages, the predominant agent being enterotoxigenic E. coli. Therefore, the traditional rules of nutritional prophylaxis play the main role in prevention; drug prophylaxis can hardly ever be recommended.