Thread: Up Close: Disease alert for Mexico travelers

Up Close: Disease alert for Mexico travelers
http://www.khou.com/news/mexico/stories ... dc3eb.html

11:34 AM CDT on Wednesday, May 25, 2005



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Mexico is a favorite vacation destination for a lot of Texans, and while many have heard the warnings about increasing violence there, officials have now issued a new alert about exotic diseases.

Mexican travel ads appeal to our sense of adventure, but in the zeal to explore the exotic, tourists can expose themselves to a host health risks.

"We often don't think of there being any risk with it," says Clinton White, with Baylor College of Medicine Infectious Diseases.

Food borne illness is the most common risk. Local dishes, when not prepared properly, can spread Hepatitis A, typhoid fever and parasites.

"You forget about the fact the person preparing that dish might be living in a poor village somewhere, and may not have the best of hygiene conditions," says White.


A tapeworm from pork caused horrible headaches for one Mexico City doctor. The parasite lodged in her brain.This Mexico City dentist is not sure where she picked up the pork tapeworm parasite that lodged in her brain. Plagued by debilitating headaches, she ended up in the emergency room after a seizure.

"It's a monster, a small monster but a monster," says Ana Flisser of National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Flisser is a leading expert on the parasite. It's the most common cause of epilepsy in Latin America. The parasite had virtually disappeared in the U.S. but is gaining a new foothold thanks to tourism and migration.

"Diseases go back and forth," Flisser says.

Even if you do not eat pork, you can still get the parasite from someone who has the tapeworm and practices poor hygiene.

"He doesn't wash his hands so when he pours salt, he pours salt with eggs, because the eggs are microscopic, and you can get infected anywhere," says Flisser. It's the people who eat food contaminated with the parasite's eggs who can get the disease cysticercosis.

Experts agree that travel back and forth across the border is behind this emerging disease in the U.S., but they admit it's difficult to track the spread of cysticercosis because in most states, American doctors are not required to report it.
And sometimes U.S. doctors don't recognize it says one Mexico City doctor who sees cases all the time.

"A lot of doctors couldn't imagine the diagnosis," says Dr. Carlos Marquez, cisticercosis specialist.
Also online

CDC site on cysticercosis parasite

Health Information for Travelers to Mexico and Central America
Cisticercosis can be successfully treated and cured by medication or surgery.

Most Americans who visit Mexico do not return with any serious medical problems. Simple precautions can prevent many diseases, including the most common ones.

"Probably two-thirds of the people who travel to Mexico end up getting diarrheal diseases if they're not very careful," says White.

One piece of advice is to stick to restaurants with a track record of cleanliness and do not underestimate the risk to ensure a healthy trip home.

GROSS!

I thought there was a health department law that people in restuarants had to wear rubber gloves and hair nets!

Now, it is not just restaurants where illegals work that we have to worry about, it is our FOOD SUPPLY, our BLOOD SUPPLY, WATER SUPPLY!

Satan is in the white house folks!

Thanks sixx, I suddenly feel ill and I have never been to Mesico.