Tropical Diseases

Specific Tropical Diseases

The following tropical diseases, among others, may require attention in view of their incidence in areas of foreign service:

1. Bacterial infections, including

• bacillary dysentery

• cholera

• Hansen's disease (leprosy)

• Oroyo fever

• pinta

• plague

• relapse fever, and

• yaws

2. Viral Infections, incuding yellow fever

  

  3. Roundworm parasitic infections, including

• dracontiasis

• filariasis (Bancroft's type)

• hookworm infection

• loiasis, and

• onchocerciasis

  4.  Other parasitic infections, including

• ameviasis

• blackwater fever

• leishmaniasis

• malaria, and

• schistosomiasis

Rheumatic Fever

Rheumatic fever is an acute, subacute, or chronic systemic disease that, for unknown reasons, is self-limiting or may lead to slowly progressive valve deformity of the heart.

 

Complications of rheumatic fever include

• cardiac arrhythmias

• pericarditis

• rheumatic pneumonitis

• pulmonary embolism

• pulmonary infarction

• valve deformity, and

• in extreme cases, congestive heart failure.