Tropical medicine is a branch of medicine that deals with a wide range of contagious and non-contagious diseases that have an uneven spread throughout the world and represent a significant and complex problem for control in tropical and subtropical regions.
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Infectious and parasitic diseases in tropical medicine
A large proportion of tropical medicine are infectious and parasitic diseases. The prevalence of infectious tropical diseases in the tropics and subtropics is due to a set of favorable natural conditions. Only in hot climates can there be many heat-loving pathogens (certain bacteria , viruses , protozoa , helminths ), their intermediate hosts (for example, tropical mollusks Bullinus tropicalis , Physopsis africana with schistosomiasis ), carriers of pathogens (such as tsetse flies , kissing bugs , tropical mosquitoes and tropic mosquitoes etc.), and warm-blooded hosts -. reservoirs and sources of pathogens (e.g., multimammate mouse Mastomys natalensis - natural source of Lassa fever , fruit-eating bats - natural reservoir of the disease, which causes Ebola virus and the like).
Conditions for the spread of contagious tropical diseases
The prevalence of infectious tropical diseases is also due to social factors. Low standards of living and education, weak health in developing countries, are the causes of the widespread tropical diseases that have already been eradicated in temperate countries. After all, part of the infectious and parasitic diseases, which are classified as tropical diseases , are endemic for countries located in the temperate climate zone: malaria , some helminth infections and the like. Many of these diseases are controlled or even eliminated in developed countries as a result of the introduction of effective public health measures, improved sanitary and hygienic living conditions and nutrition. Since climate is not the leading cause of the endemicity of these diseases in tropical regions, there are more and more proposals to rename this clinical section of medicine into “geographical medicine” or “third world medicine”.
General features of the course of tropical diseases
Some tropical diseases are not infectious, for example, lesions that occur through snake bites. In tropical and subtropical climates, through the high ambient temperature, high air humidity, etc., the course of tropical diseases is such that there is a significant strain on all physiological systems of the body to maintain homeostasis, which greatly complicates the course of the disease. For example, measles in tropical regions proceeds harder from that in regions of a temperate climate, because much of the body’s physiological systems efforts are directed at eliminating the excess heat that is generated through significant fever inherent in measles. But through the high temperature of the environment, this is an extremely complicated process, which leads to the death of the sick, especially of childhood, due to overheating. Or superficial abrasions in conditions of tropical high humidity of the air, high ambient temperature, even in healthy people before, quickly complicates the accession of purulent infection, less often occurs in a temperate climate zone. Tropical medicine has common uses for travel medicine and travel illness. Travel medicine is not limited only to diseases of tropical regions and problems of tropical diseases, but includes in its structure and components of tropical medicine.
See also
- Tropical diseases
- Travel medicine