Common Skin Infections in Travelers

Dermatoses are a leading cause of health problems in travelers. They cover a large spectrum of diseases, which includes infectious skin diseases of exotic or cosmopolitan origin as well as environmental skin diseases. The purposes of this review were to identify the most common travel‐related skin infections and to familiarize health providers with their epidemiology, clinical features, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. During travel, dermatoses have been reported by 8% of 784 American travelers worldwide in a questionnaire‐based survey published in 2000. Of the 63 dermatoses reported in this cohort, 14 were related to insect bites or stings, 10 to sun exposure, 7 to dermatophytes, 7 to contact allergy, 5 to infectious cellulites, 4 to miscellaneous causes, and 16 were from unknown causes.1 Similarly, on‐site studies of health impairment described dermatoses as being one of the three main reasons for consultation in travelers abroad. In Nepal, three studies showed that dermatoses were the third to the fourth most frequent presenting illness among tourists: skin diseases accounted for 12% of health impairments among 838 French tourists in 1984, 8.7% of consultations among 276 French tourists in 2001, and 10% of 19,616 presentations of patients of all nationalities at a private clinic in the 1980s.2,3 In two of these three Nepalese studies, bacterial and fungal skin infections as well as scabies infestation were the most common travel‐associated dermatoses reported.2 Considering a different environment in the Maldives and Fiji, dermatoses were the most frequent presenting illnesses in tourists, with sunburns, superficial injuries (including those due to contact with marine creatures), and skin infections documented most often.4,5 In Burkina Faso, among 100 Westerners with 106 dermatoses diagnosed through teledermatology, the most frequently observed skin diseases were bacterial (21%), viral (12%), and fungal (17%) infections; arthropod‐induced dermatitis (8%); and dermatoses of another … Corresponding Author: Eric Caumes, MD, Departement des Maladies Infectieuses et Tropicales, Hopital Pitie‐Salpetriere, 45‐83 Bld de l’hopital, F‐75013 Paris, France. E‐mail: eric.caumes{at}psl.aphp.fr