Coming to America - Vector-Born Illnesses and their Expanding Ranges

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In this episode, I speak with Dr. Allison Messina, an Assistant Professor of Pediatric Infectious Disease in Florida at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital. We talk about vector-born illnesses - their presentation and management, and where and when to look out for them. Ranges of many of these illnesses are expanding, both northward from the tropics, and for diseases like Lyme disease, to broadening regions within North America, so many of us will be seeing these illnesses in areas where they weren't previously found. Dr. Messina provides recommendations for us as treating physicians and for those of us planning to travel to areas with illnesses not endemic to where we're living.

We talk about the CDC Yellow Book as a guide for travel medicine and when treating patients who have recently traveled. Here is a link to the website - we both use this regularly and find it really helpful.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/yellowbook-home