“Tourista”, or traveller’s diarrhea, affects 10 to 40% travelers – a variable proportion depending on the country visited and the length of stay – and is defined by at least three emissions of soft or liquid stools per day during a stay abroad, or in the days following the return. She is often of bacterial origin. Of the precautions limit contamination: avoid tap water, raw food, food sold in the street… “Love-killing” recommendations for local immersion… but justified.
In fact, even benign, the tourista promotes the development of a urinary tract infection. This was revealed by two Finnish researchers in a publication published in April in Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease. In this prospective study of 517 Finns, people preparing to travel more than 4 days outside Scandinavia completed a first health questionnaire before their departure, a second questionnaire 6 days following their return, and finally a third 3 to 5 weeks following their return.
Using data from the second questionnaire, the researchers estimated that 15 of the volunteers (2.9% of the cohort), all traveling to a developing country, had had a urinary tract infection during their trip, a proportion 5 times higher than in the general population. In parallel, 353 subjects had had turista (68.3%). The travelers with UTIs had all had turista – and of the three people who recorded the date symptoms started for both infections, none had had the UTI before the diarrhoea. The researchers conclude that turista is a predisposing risk factor for urinary tract infections (odds ratio = 9.2; P = 0.011), probably because diarrhea facilitates access of intestinal bacteria (some of which cause urinary tract infections) to the urethra.
