[Risk of acquiring antibiotic-resistant bacteria and travel].

Abstract

RISK OF ACQUIRING ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTAN. BACTERIA AND TRAVEL. The continuing expansion of international tourism increases the opportunities of contact with diverse epidemiological environments, leading to both a risk of bacterial acquisition or infection for the traveler and the circulation of the micro-organisms around the world. With the disparate increase in antibiotic resistance worldwide, the traveler becomes a microbiological sentinel for resistance surveillance. Travel has been associated with the acquisition of digestive carriage of multidrug-resistant Enterobacterales, most frequently associated with travel to South Asia, enhanced by diarrhea and/or antibiotic use. But travel has also been the cause of authentic infections caused by multi- or extensively resistant bacteria, such as shigellosis, typhoid fever caused by Salmonella typhi, sexually transmitted infections caused by gonococci, or skin infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), for which worry is the low number of antibiotics remaining effective. It is therefore necessary to advise travelers during pre-travel consultations on how to reduce the risk of acquisition.