Published 6 October 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1746
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1746

Clinical Review

Management of travellers’ diarrhoea

David R Hill, director, honorary professor1, Edward T Ryan, director, associate professor2

1 National Travel Health Network and Centre, and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Hospital for Tropical Diseases, London WC1E 6JB, 2 Travelers’ Advice and Immunization Center, and Tropical and Geographic Medicine Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA

Correspondence to: D R Hill david.hill@uclh.org

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Travellers’ diarrhoea is one of the most common illnesses in people who travel internationally, and depending on destination affects 20-60% of the more than 800 million travellers each year. In most cases the diarrhoea occurs in people who travel to areas with poor food and water hygiene.1 This review examines the approach to the prevention and treatment of diarrhoea in travellers. Much of the evidence base for travellers’ diarrhoea has been established over the past 30 years, with a strong body of randomised trials and consensus opinion in support of recommendations. The use of antibiotics for self treatment or chemoprophylaxis, however, remains debatable.


We identified articles through an electronic search of PubMed and the Cochrane library using the term "travelers’ diarrhea" alone and in combination with "treatment", "etiology", and "prevention". Additional studies were sourced from the retrieved articles. We also reviewed our extensive collection of articles on the subject, as . . . [Full text of this article]


Foods and beverages to be avoided
Hygiene measures

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