Tropical medicine

Some giant leaps but mostly tardy progress is the message delivered by Murray and colleagues in this week's BMJ (p 490). Our understanding of tropical infections might have improved, but drug and vaccine development has been disappointing: the tsetse fly is a durable opponent, and Gambian sleeping sickness has risen sharply. African spending on health care is low, and public health measures are inadequate. Where to turn for help? The West, of course, or the web, which amounts to the same thing.

The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (www.astmh.org/), the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine (www.tropmed.tulane.edu), and the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (www.rstmh.org) all are prominent web players. The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene links to the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Review Group, and a practical section on treatment focuses on effective health care in developing countries (www.liv.ac.uk/lstm/ihd98-ehc.html#eu). For a rousing tour, however, the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene is hard to beat. Follow its clinical site links to the World Health Organisation's guide to vaccination requirements and health advice (www.who.int/ith/english/index.htm), as well as the CIA's “World factbook.”

As for an African perspective, forget it. Thailand is as tropical as the web gets (www.mahidol.ac.th/mahidol/tm/h-tromed.htm).