Again I have to disagree. The article cites data showing that there are increasing numbers of people who

are traveling now compared to previous years. The world’s population is also increasing and it is easier to travel far distances very quickly. So it is not surprising that more travel is occurring, but the same travel activities still take place. We still travel on vacation, go on safari, visit relatives for weddings, volunteer in refugee camps, and immigrate to new countries. These activities occurred in the 1970s and they continue to occur now. KU57788 There is just more of it happening. This should not alter our ability to apply established case definitions and categorize travelers into groups based on their main reason for traveling. Although the “classic” definition includes immigrant status and ethnicity, the VFR categorization is selleckchem a surrogate marker for an interaction

among a complex set of behaviors that may be difficult to identify individually. It does not seem to matter what part of the world VFR travelers come from. All groups, including Asians returning to Asia and Africans returning to Africa, appear to be at increased risk of certain travel-related conditions compared to non-VFR travelers.8,12 There appears to be something inherent in this paradigm of returning to one’s country of origin that is independent of genetic factors or specific cultural background. This was nicely demonstrated in the GeoSentinel report on VFR travelers, which showed a decreasing gradient of adverse health outcomes from “immigrant VFRs” to other types of “traveler VFRs” and then to tourists.12

Based on the way the data were collected, the “traveler VFRs” included spouses and offspring of an “immigrant VFR” as well as tourists and other types of travelers who reported seeing a friend or relative while traveling. Even Ureohydrolase though a precise definition is not always applied, it has been a convenient and fairly reliable indicator of increased risk for acquiring certain infectious diseases during travel. A case definition, just like a laboratory test, has inherent operating characteristics—namely sensitivity and specificity. By broadening the definition of VFR to include persons not connected to immigrant families, the probability of detecting high-risk travelers (sensitivity) is increased, but the specificity of the definition is dramatically decreased. The more inclusive definition being proposed will result in greater numbers of travelers classified as VFRs who had not been classified as VFRs previously. It is possible that conditions and adverse health outcomes that previously had been associated with being a VFR compared to other types of travelers will no longer maintain that association. Another concern is that even though a “classic” VFR and a high-risk tourist who is visiting a friend have some high-risk behaviors in common, it is likely that their reasons for having those behaviors are considerably different.