Each year in the United States, more than 1 million women experience an episode of acute PID, with the rate of infection highest among teenagers. More than 100,000 women become infertile each year as a result of PID, and a large proportion of the 70,000 ectopic (tubal) pregnancies occurring every year are due to the consequences of PID. In 1997 alone, an estimated $7 billion was spent on PID and its complications.

What is Salmonellosis?

Salmonellosis is a foodborne illness caused by the bacteria salmonella. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhea (sometimes bloody), fever, and headache.

Salmonella are bacteria that cause an infection of the gastrointestinal system in humans. The bacteria can be found in water, soil, kitchen surfaces, animal feces, raw meats, poultry, and eggs. The disease is usually limited to the intestinal tract, but the salmonella organisms can spread to other parts of the body, such as blood or bone. Salmonella can cause typhoid fever, the symptoms of which include fever, abdominal pain, headache, malaise, lethargy, skin rash, constipation, and delirium.

Salmonella is usually transmitted to humans by foods contaminated with animal feces. Contaminated foods usually do not look or smell unusual. Food may also become contaminated by an infected food handler who neglected to wash his hands after using the bathroom.

What is Shigellosis?

Shigellosis is an infectious disease caused by a group of bacteria called Shigella. Most who are infected with Shigella develop diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps starting a day or two after they are exposed to the bacterium. The diarrhea is often bloody. Shigellosis usually resolves in 5 to 7 days. In some persons, especially young children and the elderly, the diarrhea can be so severe that the patient needs to be hospitalized. A severe infection with high fever may also be associated with seizures in children less than 2 years old. Some persons who are infected may have no symptoms at all, but may still pass the Shigella bacteria to others.

What is Infectious Syphilis?

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum. It has often been called “the great imitator” because so many of the signs and symptoms are indistinguishable from those of other diseases.

In the United States, health officials reported over 32,000 cases of syphilis in 2002, including 6,862 cases of primary and secondary (P&S) syphilis. In 2002, half of all P&S syphilis cases were reported from 16 counties and 1 city; and most P&S syphilis cases occurred in persons 20 to 39 years of age. The incidence of infectious syphilis was highest in women 20 to 24 years of age and in men 35 to 39 years of age.

Over the past several years, increases in syphilis among MSM (men having sex with men) have been reported in various cities and areas, including Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Southern California, Miami, and New York City. In the recent outbreaks, high rates of HIV co-infection were documented, ranging from 20 percent to 70 percent. While the health problems caused by syphilis in adults are serious in their own right, it is now known that the genital sores caused by syphilis in adults also make it easier to transmit and acquire HIV infection sexually.

What is Active Tuberculosis?

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a rod-shaped bacterium that can cause disseminated disease but is most frequently associated with pulmonary infections. The bacilli are transmitted by the airborne route and, depending on host factors, may lead to active disease. Tuberculosis (TB) can usually be treated successfully with multiple medications.

Occurrence:

In many other countries, TB is much more common than in the United States, and it is an increasingly serious public health problem.

Risk for Travelers:

To become infected, a person usually would have to spend a relatively long time in a closed environment where the air was contaminated by a person with untreated TB who was coughing and who had numerous M. tuberculosis organisms (or tubercle bacilli) in secretions from the lungs. TB infection is generally transmitted through the air; therefore, there is virtually no danger of its being spread by dishes, linens, and items that are touched, or by most food products. However, it can be transmitted through unpasteurized milk or milk products obtained from infected cattle.